OUR BEST MOODS 



SOLILOQUIES AND OTHER 
DISCOURSES 



BY 



DAVID GREGG, D. D. 

PASTOR LAFAYETTE AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



* 



THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



NEW YORK 
E. B. TREAT, 5 Cooper Union 

OFFICE OF THE TREASURY MAGAZINE 




PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 



The discourses published herein were delivered 
in the ordinary course of the Author's pulpit 
ministrations ; their publication has been urgently 
called for by a large number of those who heard 
them. 

In this permanent form it is hoped they may 
prove a blessing to many others. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



I. Our Best Moods: their Origin and Use i 

II. Soliloquy in Human Life : its Place and 

Power 29 

III. The Face of Jesus Christ 53 

IV. Straightforward Speech and Genuine Life . . 81 
V. Joseph's Wagons; or, Faith's Symbols 107 

VI. "The Indignation of a Fine Soul" 133 

VII. Help and Cheer from the Glorified Dead. . . 157 
VIII. Crucifying Christ while Appropriating His 

Robes 181 

IX. The Things of Childhood to be Carried into 

Mature Life 209 

X. Results of Communion with God 237 

XL The New Testament Christ the Old Testa- 
ment Shekinah 261 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XII. The Possibilities of Young Men in our Great 

Cities 285 

XIII. Insects with Wings, or Beautified Sins 311 

XIV. Prayer for Instruction in Arithmetic 337 



I. 



OUR BEST MOODS: THEIR ORIGIN AND 
USE. 



I. 



OUR BEST MOODS: THEIR ORIGIN 
AND USE. 

"And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within 
us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us 
the Scriptures? " — Luke 24: 32. 

The story of the text is a story which shows 
the play of moods in human life. This is the rea- 
son we come to it now. We covet for ourselves 
the best mental frames, the best states of heart, 
that by means of these we may reach a perfect 
versus a partial self. We believe that we are made 
by our moods ; so we take up the story of the 
text that we may analyze the moods which were 
the hidden forces in the substructure of the nature 
of these two men, Cleopas and his friend. 

Who were Cleopas and his friend? No one 
knows. No one ever heard of them before. They 
were inconspicuous and unhistoric. Outside of 
this story they have no existence. Christ had only 
forty days to spend between His resurrection and 
His ascension, and yet He gave a full half day of 

9 



10 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



this valuable time to the purifying and the chang- 
ing and the reconstruction of the moods of these 
humble and unknown men. This certainly reveals 
Christ's estimate of man's moods. He seeks to 
make these right in order that He make the man 
right. He found Cleopas and his friend in one of 
the lower moods, and when He left them He left 
them in one of the higher moods. He found them 
facing the wrong way, He left them facing the 
right way. 

The story of Cleopas and his friend is an ex- 
ceedingly interesting story. It is climacteric both 
in substance and in form. It is more like an acted 
drama than a story. We are interested in the two 
sad-faced men as they quit Jerusalem, and we 
enter with them into their heart-sorrow ; but when 
the unknown stranger joins them, and throws his 
life into their life, our interest rises to a white-heat. 
The center of their thoughts and of their conversa- 
tion and of their deep feeling is Jesus. Jesus and 
their moods are locked and interlocked. Accord- 
ing as they see Christ, so they feel ; and according 
as they feel, so they act. Thus it has been for 
three years. The disciples of the Master have 
been bounding and rebounding from mood to 
mood. They have been full of hope, then full of 
discouragement. They have been enthusiastic, 
then spiritless. They have had a grand perspect- 
ive, then they have been hemmed in on every side 
as with iron clamps. At one time they could see 



THEIR ORIGIN AND USE. 



everything, and then at another time they could 
see absolutely nothing. At one time they thought 
that every grand thing which they saw in Him 
was about to be realized, and they rose up to pro- 
claim Him king ; but in a few days afterward these 
very same things scarcely had a tentative shape. 
Much had seemed about to happen ; but nothing 
did happen, and it looked as though nothing could 
happen. 

The sadness of these two friends, as they walked, 
slow of foot and heavy of heart, typified the mood 
of all the disciples of Jesus. They had a dream 
of a regenerated country ; of an established king- 
dom with its capital at Jerusalem ; of a general 
transfiguration ; and of honors and emoluments 
which would soon be theirs. They had enlarged 
views of Christ. They loved the Master fervently. 
They were fascinated by His teachings. They 
were awed by His miracles. They were ravished 
by His tender affections. They had given up their 
all, and had devoted themselves for all they were 
worth to Him and to the future which they thought 
they saw opening upon the world through Him. 
Now, instead of realizing these fond anticipations 
which made new men of them, what had come? 
What? Inglorious collapse! A cause smitten to 
the dust by the strong arm of the hated Roman 
Empire ; shattered hopes ; a complete disappoint- 
ment ; a cruel deception ; and, above all, the catas- > 
trophe of the Cross. These were sad things to 



12 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



talk about, but these were the only things they 
had to talk about. The only thing not sad before 
them was a certain rumor which some hysterical 
women had set afloat, that His tomb was empty 
and He had been seen alive. But even that was 
sad also, because it was such an utter impossi- 
bility. 

Talking only made matters worse, so that when 
the unknown stranger joined them they were 
completely swayed by sadness. Their sad faces 
framed Christ's salutation : " What manner of com- 
munications are these that ye have one to another, 
as ye walk, and are sad? " 

The happenings amid which they had lived were 
so much a part of their lives, that they wondered 
that any man in all Jerusalem could be ignorant of 
them, and they expressed their wonder. "Art 
thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not 
known the tilings which are come to pass there in 
these days ? " They did not know that this sympa- 
thetic friend was Jesus. "Their eyes were /widen." 
They were holden by what? Holden by unpre- 
paredness for His coming ; by wrong views ; by 
non- expectation ; by man-manufactured theories; 
by ignorance of the Scriptures. No one knew 
better what had taken place in the community than 
Jesus. Who could know more of the crucifixion 
than He ? or more of the tomb, full or empty, than 
He? or more of His reputed resurrection from 
the dead than He? But mark the answer which 



THEIR ORIGIN AND USE. 



13 



He returned to the question of Cleopas. His 
answer was this : " What things f " This set both 
of the men talking, and they recounted everything ; 
and more than this, they put their interpretation 
upon the sad events. They gathered up the frag- 
ments of their broken hopes, and put these together 
again, that He might see just what they had been 
cherishing in their heart. What a drama this is! 
We are let into the seciet. As we read and listen, 
how impatient we grow, and how anxious we be- 
come that Cleopas and his friend may know all. 
We anticipate the thrill of their coming discovery. 
I call this magnificent story-writing. 

Their reply to the question, " What things ? " — 
the question of the Master — is really part of the 
exposition which Jesus gives of His Messiahship. 
He lets them say that they had trusted that Jesus 
was He who should have redeemed Israel, and 
then intimate that instead of redeeming Israel He 
had abandoned the cause of Israel at the critical 
moment. He lets them say that things are worse 
now than they ever have been. He lets them say 
all this that He may show them that Jesus was 
never truer to the cause of Israel than when He 
died, and was never so near His triumph as when 
his enemies nailed Him to the cross. It was just 
then that He nonplussed the powers of darkness. 
He lets them tell of the shipwreck of their faith, 
and enunciate the things that disappoint them 
most ; for He meant to make evidences out of their 



14 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



objections, and to show them from the Scriptures 
that the very things which perplexed them and 
broke them up were the precise things which the 
Scriptures predicated of the true Messiah. "Be- 
ginning at Moses and all the prophets, He ex- 
pounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things 
concerning Himself." 

It was the Scriptures, the Holy Bible, which 
Jesus used, in order to lift these men from the 
lower mood into the higher mood. It was by un- 
folding the Scriptures, and by filling their whole 
being with the truths of the Bible, that He changed 
their views, repleted them with rapturous joy, and 
made new men out of them. Mark this : Jesus 
Christ the perfect man honored the Bible. He 
recognized it as the repository of truth. He in- 
dorsed it as a divine power. He exalted it as the 
touchstone by which ideas and doctrines and senti- 
ments and duties are to be tested. He used it as 
evidence. What is evidence? It is that which 
satisfies a man from top to bottom — his intellect, 
his conscience, his affections, his tastes, his emo- 
tions, every part of him. In the case of Cleopas 
and his friend, the Bible, as used by the Master, 
did all this. The Scriptures opened produced 
faith ; and faith quickened resulted in hearts that 
burned ; and hearts that burned with every faculty 
on fire, scintillating and corruscating, saw the true 
Christ. A heart on fire is the symbol of intense 
life. Now, intensity of life is what we should 



THEIR ORIGIN AND USE. 



15 



possess when we deal with Jesus. It enlarges fel- 
lowship, makes us more receptive, and gives us 
keen perceptions. 

With what did the hearts of these two burn? 
They burned with joy. They burned with a new 
admiration of Jesus. They burned with a new 
sense of His mastery over affairs. They burned 
with a sense of shame, too, that they should have 
done Him the injustice of supposing that He had 
deserted them and the cause which He introduced 
into the world. They burned with the glow of 
rekindled hopes. They burned with a fresh confi- 
dence in the Christ. They burned with bright 
anticipations of a glorious future. No wonder their 
hearts burned. They had gotten back their Christ, 
and He had charmed away their griefs, and had 
filled them with unspeakable comfort. 

To me there is a perfect charm in the way the 
story tells us how Cleopas and his friend got back 
their Christ. They say to their hearts, " This 
stranger is a friend of the Master ; he understands 
the Master; he completely trusts the Master; he 
thoroughly knows what the Master should be, and 
what the Master is." Because of this they feel it 
good and uplifting to be in the presence of this 
stranger. When they reach the white houses and 
the lemon groves of Emmaus, as the red sun sinks 
in the western sky over the hills of Ephraim, their 
hearts cling to the new-made friend. When He 
would go on alone, they plead with Him, "Abide 



i6 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



with us." When He accepts of their pressing in- 
vitation and sits down with them to enjoy the 
evening meal, He reverently lifts His voice in 
prayer and asks a blessing, just as Jesus was wont 
to do in the happy days of old. Then their hearts 
instinctively say, " How like the Master Himself 
this new-found friend of Jesus is!" With this 
state of feeling reached, they are ready for the last, 
the revealing act of this wonderful but captivating 
stranger, viz., the breaking of the bread which has 
just been blessed. It was in the performance of 
this act that they knew Him. As he lifted the 
bread and handed it to them they saw the print of 
the nail in His hand, and at once knew that it was 
the crucified hand of the Crucified One that min- 
istered to them. God be praised ! The Scriptures 
are fulfilled ! The resurrection story of the morn- 
ing is true! Christ is alive again! They can 
stand nothing more than that; hence the most 
merciful thing Jesus can do is to do what he does, 
vanish for the time oitt of their sight. He has 
lifted them into the highest possible mood, and all 
that is necessary is to allow that mood full play. 
It will do all the rest. It will take Cleopas and his 
friend back to Jerusalem, and will make them for- 
ever witnesses of the resurrection and heralds of 
the glorious gospel. "And they rose up the same 
hour, and returned to Jerusalem; . . . and they 
told what things were done in the way, and how 
He was known of them in breaking of bread" 



THEIR ORIGIN AND USE. 



17 



What did Jesus do in order to lift these disciples 
to that high mood which changed their whole life ? 
He did this : by the use of the Bible He put hope 
into the hearts of Cleopas and his friend. By hope 
they were saved. When hope is gone, life and 
impulse are gone. There are no songs in the 
night. There is no effort. There is no progress. 
Bunyan shows us this in that marvelous parable 
of life, " The Pilgrim's Progress." Cleopas and his 
friend were like Pilgrim in one of his dark experi- 
ences. Pilgrim on one occasion fell into the hands 
of Giant Despair, and the giant shut him up in a 
black dungeon in Doubting Castle. And how did 
Pilgrim act and talk then? What was his mood? 
How did he feel ? He said to himself, "All things 
are at an end. No more sunny roadway. No 
more pleasant conversation with friends. No more 
songs in the night. No more the reaching out of 
a helping hand to some fallen brother. No more 
gleams and glimpses of the Eternal City. Nothing 
in the future but darkness, helplessness, and de- 
spair." Suddenly he remembered a key formerly 
given him, and which he had put for safe-keeping 
in his bosom. He began at once searching for 
that key, for as he fumbled around the door of the 
dungeon the question came to him : " What if this 
hidden key of mine should fit this lock, and turn 
this bolt, and give me freedom? It may be that 
this key was given me for such an hour as this." 
The thought was an intuitive thought, and the 



1,8 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



intuition proved as true as the God who sent it. 
Pilgrim found that the lock and key matched ; and 
with the key of hope the bolt of despair was turned 
back with perfect ease. When once this bolt was 
turned the door of the dungeon sprung wide open 
of its own accord, and Pilgrim was out again in the 
sunlight, a free man. Looking up to the heights 
of the Mount of Glory, he saw there full in view 
the Celestial City with its streets of gold and its 
shining walls of precious stones. Methinks, too, 
that his vision during his first moments of freedom 
were so keen, so microscopic, and so telescopic, 
that, looking through the open door of the palace 
up there,' as an angel turned the pages of the 
Lamb's Book of Life, he actually caught a glimpse 
of his own name upon one of the crystal pages. 
Of one thing we are absolutely certain, and that 
is, from that moment on Pilgrim went forward on 
his pilgrimage with a fresh zeal and an unflagging 
step. Christ fired Cleopas and his friend with 
hope. With the key of hope He unlocked the 
dungeon of the lower mood in which they were 
imprisoned, and opened for them the door into the 
sunshine of a higher mood. 

There are three points which I wish to evolve 
from this story, and these I shall now set in order. 

I . We are all creatures of moods, and our moods 
determine our living. 

For the most part we act as we feel. Emotion 
is life. Stagnation is death. What is water in a 



THEIR ORIGIN AND USE. 



19 



stagnant pool worth? It has nothing of the music 
of the brook in it. It turns no mill. It gladdens 
no meadow. It is water in motion that is life, and 
that is valuable. Water in motion : sailing through 
the heavens in clouds; pattering in the April 
shower; leaping in the cataract; throbbing in the 
mighty tides of the ocean — that is the life of 
nature. So it is in the human world. It is not 
the men who stagnate, but the men who circulate, 
who pulsate, that are life and power. It is the 
emotive men, the men who have large capacity for 
feeling. " Modern science has brought out this 
truth most wonderfully in its great discovery that 
all forces are only 'modes of motion.' So it is 
' motion ' with the letter ' e ' prefixed — ' emotion 1 
— that lies at the heart of all the transformations 
and all the progress of human life." As men are 
under the influence of the emotions — love, hate; 
trust, fear ; hope, despair ; admiration, repulsion — 
so will they act. These emotions create moods, 
and moods create life. 

We all know how our moods govern us, and 
how quickly we pass from mood to mood. One * 
morning I heard a mother ask her little child, 
who had wakened in good spirits, " Whom does 
baby love?" The little thing answered gleefully, 
"Baby loves everybody" Five minutes after the 
child became dispirited ; the same voice asked the 
same question, "Whom does baby love?" and the 
answer this time was, "Baby loves nonebody" 



20 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



What was the cause of this change of conduct? 
A change of mood. That was all. But that was 
everything. It meant a change in the spirit and 
conduct and life of the child. We have an illus- 
tration of the same kind in the experience of the 
Hebrews on the border of the Promised Land. 
Look into the faces of the Hebrews when Joshua 
and Caleb return as spies from Canaan and tell of 
the wonders of the land. The multitude go into 
raptures over the land when they hear of the milk 
and the honey which are there, and when they see 
samples of the grain and of the luscious clusters. 
The leaders can scarce restrain the army from tak- 
ing up the march at once. But mark you how in 
a moment everything changes ! The spies utter 
one sentence which drives hope out of their lives. 
It is this: "There are giants in the land" This 
changes their mood, and they talk differently : 
" We do not care much for Canaan — never did. 
We do not drink milk — never did. We do not 
like honey — never did ; it is so sweet that it sickens 
us. The Promised Land, after all, is only hills. 
Egypt is good enough for us. Let us go back to 
Egypt.'' 

Life is full of moods. That is our point. There 
are in it moods of unfaith, moods of scorn, moods 
of indifference, and Sadducean moods. There are 
in it low- moods, which may come from ill- health 
and physical feebleness, or from fatigue of mind, or 
from oppressive rivalries, or from disappointment. 



THEIR ORIGIN AND USE. 2 I 

We need rest; we need sleep. In these moods 
our moral discrimination is blunted, our reason is 
warped. We have the testimony only of our 
weariness; we are full of apprehension, fear, fore- 
boding. 

Life is full of moods. That is our point. There 
are in it moods of hope, moods of love, moods of 
consecration, moods of faith, moods of expectancy, 
moods of joy, and sacramental moods. These are 
the better moods, and are full of inspiration and 
light. They are full of heart-life with its intensi- 
ties and raptures. In them all the faculties of man 
are awake and in exercise. Man is clear-thoughted 
and large-hearted. Reason and conscience and 
the faculty of vision are all clarified. These are 
the moods which we should choose and seek; for 
out of them may be constructed a beautiful and 
Christlike life. 

Just here comes in my second point, and it comes 
in here for our encouragement. It is this : 

2. There is a way of reaching the high moods. 

Cleopas and his friend reached an apocalyptic 
mood. The Bible introduces us to a troop of men 
living in the best mood. Jesus had His moods. 
It was not all a Gethsemane mood with Him; He 
had His transfiguration night and His hosanna day. 
The shepherds had their uplift ; it was the holy 
night. The world was never the same after that 
night. Something had happened. The old had 
passed away and the new had come. God had 



22 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



wrought by His quiet power a great revolution. 
Run down the names that tower in history, and 
notice the high place which the best moods have : 
Bethel was a high mood in Jacob's life ; Pisgah in 
Moses' life ; Horeb in Elijah's life ; the house-top 
vision at Joppa in Peter's life ; Patmos in John's 
life ; and the third-heaven translation in Paul's 
life. 

I urge upon those young in years who are 
just entering the Christian life to seek the best 
moods, and to store their natures brimful with 
hope, that element which is the largest constituent 
of a best mood. I preach hope for everybody, 
even for those who are in the midst of reverses. 
There is nothing better that we can have. No one 
should distrust hope. It is not a cheat foisted 
upon human life. It is not a mirage making 
beautiful pictures on the air of something that does 
not exist. It is not a will-o'-the-wisp flitting 
before us and leading us into a bog. It is a vital 
force putting power into the roots of our being. 
Let me illustrate. Let me take an ultra case. 
You are a business man, and a man disappointed 
in business. The most hated thing in the world 
is your ledger. You hate it because it tells the 
tale of the wreck of your hopes. Is there any 
harm in your resting your head on your hand over 
that ledger, in which 'the balance comes out on 
the wrong side, and dreaming that you will have 
something better by and by ? No. Not a bit of 



THEIR ORIGIN AND USE. 



23 



harm. It will refresh you. It will give a new 
spring and vigor to your future attacks on the 
problems of your life. 

Do our young friends ask me, How can we 
reach the best moods in life? I answer their 
question by asking, How did Cleopas and his friend 
reach their best mood? They are our guides. 

(a) They reached their best mood by living with 
the open Bible. 

Do likewise, and you, too, shall reach your best 
mood. Here is where you get hope. Here is 
where the bells of promise ring. Is there any 
grander hope in the universe than the hope of the 
resurrection, or the hope of likeness to God, or the 
hope of perfection? These are all in the Book. 
We want something to implant in our natures the 
hopes and feelings and sympathies and loves and 
joys that center in the nature of Christ. The 
Bible does that. Moods are results. Emotions 
are always the subjects of conditions. They do 
not come and go at call. Feelings follow causa- 
tions. Ideas produce feelings. Elemental truths 
produce feelings. What mood do you want ? The 
faith mood? The ideas and elemental truths to 
produce faith are in the Book. So are the ideas 
and elemental truths requisite to produce the joy 
mood, the love mood, the hope mood, the sacra- 
mental mood. The way into the best mood is 
through the diligent and prayerful use of God's 
Word, the Bible. 



24 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



(b) They reached their best mood through as- 
sociation with Jesus Christ. 

Usually our best moods come to us from our 
best associations. Christ raised their minds into 
contact with His, and this was the secret of their 
leap from the lower mood to the higher mood. 
Between them and the Master there was the ming- 
ling of soul with soul, heart with heart, spirit with 
spirit, and life with life. The Christ mood is the 
highest mood. The result was they reached that. 
They thought as Christ thought, and they felt as 
Christ felt. 

But I must hasten to my last point. It is the 
practical application of the sermon. It is this : 

3. There is a profitable way of using our best 
moods. 

We should convert them into inspiring memories. 

We should gather them as men gather and store 
electricity. We should turn them into perpetual 
fountains of joy. They can ever remain in our 
experience as reminders of our possibilities. They 
can create renewed expectations of a second bene- 
fit. Cleopas and his friend drew fresh joy out of 
their best mood after Jesus had vanished out of 
their sight. "And they said one to another, Did 
not our heart burn within us, while He talked 
with us by the way, and while He opened to us the 
Scriptures f " They relived the scenes of their 
best mood. They treasured their mood as an 
ideal. They set it up in their life as a standard. 



THEIR ORIGIN AND USE. 



25 



We should make our best moods the court of 
decision in life. 

Too many things are settled in the lower court 
of our nature, where pride and vanity and avarice 
are on the bench, and where carnal policy pleads 
at the bar. Too many things are settled in our 
lower moods when single faculties of our souls only 
are active and brought into play. In our higher 
moods, all the faculties of our souls are awake and 
are at work. Then the mind perceives things 
intuitively, and the conscience is exceedingly sen- 
sitive to right and wrong. Reason is calm, the 
moral feelings are aroused, and everything fine 
in our nature is in the ascendency. The feelings 
are heroic, and the vision is luminous. The soul 
sweeps along the lines of its purest ideals. The 
man feels that he is a son of God. The chief- 
justice in the spirit of man is above and beyond a 
bribe. This is the court in which to adjudicate 
the claims of God and of mankind, and in which 
to decide as to what is right and wrong, and what 
is duty. This is the court into which to bring our 
doubts and cases of casuistry. This is the court 
whose decisions upon all matters of principle and 
sentiment and conduct may be counted upon as 
almost infallible. 

We should translate our best moods into actual 
life. 

That is what Cleopas and his friend did ; their 
best mood became a journey to Jerusalem and a 



26 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



testimony to the risen Christ. We should give 
our moods a practical turn. This is what Jesus 
did with His highest earthly mood, His transfigu- 
ration mood. He compelled it to get Him ready 
for Calvary. He occupied its precious and uplift- 
ing moments in talking with Moses and Elijah 
about the decease which He should accomplish at 
Jerusalem. Our best moods, in which the pulse 
is quickened, and the love fired, and the brain 
made large-thoughted, are only the initial condi- 
tion of a life more permanent and better. These 
must result in purposes, and in volitions, and in 
intellectual states, and in character, and in conduct. 
There must be, as an outcome from them, a jour- 
ney to Jerusalem, and a testimony for Christ. Our 
best moods should be productive ; they should 
give the world something grand and permanent. 
David's best mood gave the world the twenty-third 
Psalm ; Paul's, the eighth chapter of the Epistle 
to the Romans; John's, the Apocalypse. These 
magnificent writings are all embodied moods. When 
we go into the midst of the affairs of the world 
we should take our visions with us, and we should 
aim to materialize them in actualities. The moods 
of an interesting and uplifting Sabbath in the tem- 
ple of God should fruit in a truer life in the home, 
and in the social circle, and in the realm of busi- 
ness. Our best moods should lay hold on the 
commonplace things of life and turn them into sac- 
ramental things for the service of God, as Moses 



THEIR ORIGIN AND USE. 



27 



laid hold of and turned the cedar wood and the 
canvas and the fine-twined linen and the gold and 
silver into a Holy Tabernacle. Every grand thing 
that has come from the hand of man is simply a 
higher mood, with its holy feelings and uplifting 
visions, translated by the patience and toil of man 
into some serviceable and permanent form. Look 
at the " Sistine Madonna " ! You are lost in won- 
der at its ideal beauty. But what is it? And 
what is it made of? It is a common piece of can- 
vas ; common pigments ; earths ; extracts ; things 
which would soil the hands if you should touch 
them. The maker was an intense soul, and an 
infinite patience ; the whole work is just the best 
mood of the artist, captured and wrought out, and 
materialized and made serviceable, and immortal- 
ized. Every high mood which God gives us 
should produce the equivalent of a " Sistine 
Madonna," or should give the world an Apoca- 
lypse, or should fruit in a journey to Jerusalem, 
and in a public testimony to the risen Christ. 

Lord grant us the beatific vision to-day. We 
need it to ennoble this life. We need it as a solace. 
So set before us the self we should reach that it 
cannot be rubbed out in forgetfulness. Help us 
to realize our high calling in Christ Jesus. Let 
our whole life be a life of ascending. Make our 
souls as sensitive to the touch of Jesus as the harp 
is to the touch of the skillful harper. Walk with 
us as we journey to the Emmaus of the skies, and 



28 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



by Thy sweet and tender fellowship lift our souls 
into the divinest of moods. And then give us 
grace that we may translate our best moods into 
the best of lives, into an eighth chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans, into the expressed confi- 
dence of a shepherd Psalm, and into a public and 
fearless and consistent testimony for Thee in the 
midst of Jerusalem. Amen. 



II. 



THE PLACE AND POWER OF SOLILOQUY IN 
HUMAN LIFE. 



II. 



THE PLACE AND POWER OF SOLILO- 
QUY IN HUMAN LIFE. 

"Commune with your own heart.'''' — Psalm 4 : 4. 

THE greatness of man and the possibilities which 
are wrapped up in his nature should be the con- 
stant topic of man. Man, when he becomes what 
it is possible for him to become, stands next to 
God. It is the duty of every man to reach this 
high place. Man next to God ! This is no fancy. 
This is a fact. Everywhere our minds perceive it. 
We perceive it as we stand amid the wonderful 
inventions of the nineteenth century. The master- 
ful way in which inventors have seized and tamed 
the elements of nature, combining a first power 
with a second power and thereby making a third 
power, a new force; harnessing the vapor, and 
handling the electric bolt, and linking continent to 
continent — all of these things remind us of the 
Creator Himself. Using the forces of nature as 
man uses them is next to creating the forces of 
nature and giving them a being. 

3 1 



32 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



A traveler of note once stood upon the rock by 
the side of Niagara Falls. But he noticed not the 
splashing cataract with its white foam and flashing 
rainbows ; His eye and mind were fastened upon 
the suspension bridge, which the daring skill of 
man had thrown as if by magic over the river. 
This was the reason which he gave for his conduct : 
"All things considered, the bridge is the greater 
wonder. It is nothing for the infinite God to pour 
out from His unmeasured hand this stream of water 
over these rocks ; but it is a marvelous something 
for limited man to bridge this tumultuous chasm." 
Considering the different factors at work, the tour- 
ist was right. ■ 

Man next to God! This is no fancy. This is 
a fact. Everywhere our minds perceive it. We 
perceive it in the world of human sacrifice. The 
nineteenth century gives us striking specimens of 
absolute surrender of self for the blessing of man- 
kind. Missionaries of the cross go into the Lazar- 
house, that at the cost of their earthly all they 
may bring eternal salvation to the lost. Within 
one hour of our city, the other day, an engineer 
of a locomotive which drew a train heavily freighted 
with human life saw on the track before him a dead 
engine. That meant that in a minute more there 
would be a wreck. And what did the man do? 
With a divine heroism he sprang to the rear of the 
wood- car and uncoupled the engine from the train, 
sprang back to his place and drew the lever, and 



PO WER OF SOLILOQ UY IN HUMAN LIFE. 3 3 



with all the head of steam possible dashed into the 
dead engine with a force which lifted both engines 
from the track. The oncoming and detached train 
had a clear way and passed by in safety. But 
what became of the brave engineer? Why ask 
that question ? There was only one thing possible 
for him. The man made a certain and an absolute 
sacrifice of himself, and that for the purpose of 
saving the lives of his fellow-men. He was so 
crushed that when they took him from the ruins 
he was not recognizable. I was on the train 
behind that train. But little did I dream of the 
heroism that was being enacted, as I chafed under 
the midnight delay, not knowing the cause. But 
since then I have often thought of that heroism, 
and I have often said to myself, " In grand and 
absolute sacrifice of self, man, when he is at his 
best, is next to God." This man gave all that 
he was capable of giving; God can do no more. 
Man living the new life, sacrificing, exercising 
patience, delighting in holiness and truth and love, 
working out great and everlasting principles, revel- 
ing in the pure and the spiritual, giving himself to 
those who have need of him and of his help, what 
or who is beyond him but God? 

I am not afraid to exalt the greatness of man 
when he conforms to the divine ideal, and when 
he is worked up into the highest possible type. 
To do that is not to derogate the greatness of God. 
The greatness of God is infinite, therefore eternally 



34 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



safe from all derogation. I am not afraid of excit- 
ing the jealousy of God. God is not jealous of 
His own. The artist is not jealous of the popular- 
ity of his picture. The author is not jealous of the 
wide sale of his book. The musician is not jealous 
of his song when it thrills to an encore. The father 
is not jealous of the influence of his son. The 
teacher is not jealous of the development of his 
favorite pupil. The developed man is the creation 
of God, made by the indwelling of His Spirit, and 
by the molding power of His Son Jesus Christ, 
and by the teaching of His Word, and by the 
operation of His providences, and God is proud 
of him. 

How shall man reach the heights which God 
has opened before him? How shall man make 
the most of himself? That is the question. To 
make the most of himself man must deal pointedly 
and specifically with himself. He may put him- 
self under the best of teachers, but that is not 
enough. He may choose the best of companions, 
but that is not enough. He may live in a moral 
community and become a member of the Church, 
but that is not enough. He may have a father 
planning for him, and a mother praying for him, 
and a minister preaching at him, but that is not 
enough. He has a duty which he owes himself, 
and until he is true to himself there can be no sal- 
vation, no growth, and no establishment of a true 
and abiding character. No man ever reaches the 



POWER OF SOLILOQUY IN HUMAN LIFE. 35 

climax of greatness until he becomes acquainted 
with himself, talks and counsels with himself, 
respects himself, plans for himself, develops him- 
self, thinks for himself, acts for himself, goes to 
school to himself, sacrifices for himself, and crowns 
himself. He must be alone, and often alone. 
He must talk with God, he must also talk with the 
great and good of the people of God ; but beyond 
all this he must in the midst of the silence and 
solemnity of solitude frequently commune with his 
own heart. Soliloquy must have a wide play in 
his life. 

Do I exaggerate the necessity for solitude and 
soliloquy in life in order to trueness and growth 
and greatness? Let human biography answer. 
All great men have insisted upon a certain amount 
of isolation. Inventors have cloistered themselves 
with nature and have experimented in solitude. 
Solitary and alone they have canvassed the inher- 
ent forces in the elements before they have unrolled 
for public scrutiny their amazing discoveries. 

It is well known how writers abstract themselves 
from society, that in retirement they may be free 
from interruption, and escape the jar of nerves 
which comes from discordant sounds. Maturin, 
the dramatist, when he felt he was getting into the 
full tide of composition, used to stick a wafer on 
his forehead to signify to the members of his 
household that he was not to be spoken to. Sir 
Walter Scott's study at Abbotsford contained one 



36 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



chair and no more. The essays of Bacon, the 
plays of Shakespeare, the poems of Browning and 
Tennyson and Whittier are not extemporized 
efforts. Each composition which carries in it im- 
mortality and feeling and experience and thought 
is pondered slowly, and when the writer is alone. 
Now, that which is necessary to good writing is 
necessary to good living. There must be thought 
in life, and conscience in life, and the play of imag- 
ination in life, if life is to be abiding in its quality, 
and influential. These things are reached in a 
large degree only when a man is alone, and can 
think, and can hear the voice of conscience, and 
can allow the imagination undisturbed to paint and 
beautify duty so that it is metamorphosed into 
privilege. Summon the great men of history into 
your presence to-day, and see if what I affirm be 
not true ! Moses was the great lawgiver of the old 
economy ; but you remember the solitude of Mount 
Sinai, where he was wrapped round with the She- 
kinah cloud. Daniel was great in Babylon, he tow- 
ered over all the wisdom of that great empire ; but 
Daniel put solitude into his busy life three times a 
day. It was amid the stillness of the river Hidekel 
or on the banks of the Tigris that he reached his 
wonderful vision of the Messianic kingdom. John 
the Baptist was a wilderness man. It was while 
on the lonely Isle of Patmos that John the apostle 
so lifted his being to spiritual heights that God 
could put the Apocalypse into his soul. In the 



POWER OF SOLILOQUY IN HUMAN LIFE. 37 

perfect human life of Jesus Christ we see the true 
essentials to right living. There were both soli- 
tude and soliloquy in His life. You are familiar 
with His forty days in the wilderness, and with 
His midnights in the mountain, and with the scene 
in the Garden of Gethsemane, with its one lone 
figure prone on the ground. Such was the soli- 
tude in the life of Christ. There was soliloquy in 
His life also. He talked to His own soul of the 
chief mission of His life. 

The words of soliloquy to which I refer are not 
many, only a sentence ; but this sentence sets in 
miniature before the soul of Jesus the whole of 
His life. The words to which I refer were these : 
" I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how 
am I straitened until it be accomplished." These 
words seem to be thrown into the discourse of 
Jesus, not so much for others, as for His own soul. 
He only understood them. If solitude and solilo- 
quy were a necessity in the human life of Jesus, 
what human nature can do without them? Let 
me point out the essentiality of solitude. 

The silence of solitude is essential in our life in 
order that we may hear distinctly the voice and 
words of God. 

No life is great where the soul does not hear 
God and admit God into its plans. God in the 
life, and the life in the hand of God, that is what 
we need. It is the voice of God that awakens 
conscience in man, and man requires an awak- 



3S 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



ened conscience when he communes with himself. 
Without conscience he cannot search his motives. 
Now, motives are the springs of life. The noises 
of the world drown the voice of God. We must 
withdraw from the noises of the world. While on 
Broadway, New York, I have heard many times 
the chimes in the Trinity Church steeple pour out 
their music at noonday. But I have noticed that 
very few of the busy crowds on the street followed 
the music. There are too many sounds disputing 
with the chimes the possession of the ear. I tried 
to follow the sacred song that was pealing through 
the air, but note after note was lost in the roar 
of the city, and in the noise and the rattle of the 
wheels of commerce. The song was broken up 
into unmeaning parts. There are hours, however, 
when the chimes in Trinity Church steeple are 
heard in all their power and emphasis without a 
break. These are the midnight hours of solitude. 
There is no difficulty in hearing and enjoying the 
anthems on Christmas night, or on the night when 
the bells ring out the old year and ring in the new. 
While busy and active on the Broadway of the 
world, God's words fall on our ears ; but because 
of the din of business and pleasure they are heard 
only in a broken, fragmentary way; but in the 
secret closet, when business and pleasure for the 
time are banished, they fall in such a way that not 
a single syllable is lost. 



Power of soliloquy in human life. 39 

One of the chief points which we should keep 
before us is this : 

is by soliloquy or soul -communion that we 
become acquainted with our nature, and learn its 
endowments, and the relation of the inner life to the 
outer life. 

There is a world within, and this is the greater 
world. This is the world that controls the outer 
world. If you want a really lovely world without, 
you must make the world within bright and lovely. 
Do not complain of what is outside, the fault is 
within. All the bitter waters thou tastest well up 
from depths within. All the gloom that surrounds 
thee is but the impure exhalation from thine own 
heart. The discord that grates on thine ear is but 
the din of thine own disordered soul. Fill thy 
heart with goodness, and thou shalt see goodness 
everywhere. Let truth and love glow within thee, 
and thy outward heaven shall bend over thee with- 
out a cloud. " Out of the heart are the issues of 
life." Get the heart right, then all will be right, 
and life will be simplified. Then there will be 
no need of check, no need of coercion, no need of 
cumbersome externals. If the heart be a thistle- 
plant, all your circumstances and all your external 
arrangements cannot make it bear a single fig. 
But if it be a fig-tree — fig in core and fig in sap — 
without coercion it will bear figs of itself. 

My fellow-men, we need to get clearer and 



40 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



broader conceptions of the world within, but we 
cannot do that unless we keep constantly going 
into the world within. Our soul is ourself, and to 
know self we must know our soul, but to know the 
soul we must constantly deal with it. Seek until 
you find yourself. Go inward and inward until 
you come to the awful shrine where dwells the liv- 
ing soul. What is the soul ? It is the only thing 
on earth that has been created in the image of 
God. Each soul has in it wonderful endowments. 
When the great God smote His hands together 
and struck out your spirit like a spark into the 
gloom, and when that seed of fire dropped down 
through the blind abyss and wrapped itself up in 
your clay body, it carried in it the image of God. 
The physical man is not the whole of us. A 
stranger to this world might imagine that it was 
from the way we dress it and house it and feed it. 
It is a wonderful creation ; it contains in it all the 
principles of mechanics, and is capable through a 
glorious transfiguration of becoming a fac- simile of 
Christ's resurrection body. There are in it many 
studies : studies of the muscles, and of the nerves, 
and of the bones, and of the veins, and of the 
arteries ; but still it is not the whole of us, nor the 
better part of us. What it includes is the better 
part of us. 

Man in his construction reminds me of what the 
lapidary calls a crystal inclusion — that is, a gem 
within a gem. The physical man is a gem, but it 



POWER OF SOLILOQUY IN HUMAN LIFE. 4 1 

carries in itself a better gem. Here, for example, 
is a beautiful sapphire from far-away Ceylon. The 
sapphire is valuable in itself ; it is opaque and of a 
milky-white color ; but it is more valuable for what 
it contains. The inside is so full of tiny six-sided 
crystals that when the light strikes on its surface 
you see a beautiful star of six rays flashing like a 
snow crystal. The physical man is the sapphire ; 
but the soul within is the six-rayed star. 

It is the soul within with which we have to deal. 
The divine precept is, " Commune with the soul." 
" Understand the life that is going on in it." And 
be assured there is a wonderful life going on in the 
soul. 

We read in fairy lore of how chasms have been 
bridged over in a single night by benevolent spirits, 
by dwarfs, by ouphes, and kindred imaginary 
creatures. " They hustle vast rocks together and 
pile them one upon another, and build piers and 
span them with arches, so that the favorite knights 
can pass over them to the castle and carry off their 
imprisoned lovers.. Sometimes while the hero 
sleeps these fairy powers construct whole cities. 
With tens of millions of hands they carry up walls 
and surmount them with golden domes, and in the 
morning whole cities stand where the night before 
there was only a wilderness." How pleasing for 
their unheard-of wonders are fairy stories ! And 
yet there is something more wonderful actually 
going on within every man. There are buildings 



42 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



going up for eternity. There is not a thought that 
is not striking a blow ; there is not an impulse that 
is not doing mason work ; there is not a passion 
darting this way or that that is not a workman's 
thrust. There are as many master- workmen in 
you as there are separate faculties, and there are 
as many blows being struck as there are separate 
thoughts and separate emotions and separate voli- 
tions. Thus the work is going on perpetually. 
Every day the myriad forces are building, build- 
ing, building, and the great structure of character 
is going up point by point, and story by story, to 
remain forever. 

It is our duty to go into our souls and superin- 
tend this building. It is our duty to make this 
superintendence exceedingly minute, and even 
microscopic. It is our duty to feel that every 
thought and every volition is a power, and should 
not be left to work hap-hazard. Nothing within 
should be slighted or overlooked because it is called 
little or small. To the thoughtful man there can 
be nothing little, and least of all in the moral sphere 
within. It was a favorite idea with Leibnitz that 
every particle of matter reflected in a manner, and 
carried latent in itself, the history of the entire 
universe. That is to say, if we knew whatever 
could be known about any single particle, we 
should be omniscient. All the forces in nature 
have been at work to make that little atom exactly 
what it is. Everything influences, and is in turn 



POWER OF SOLILOQUY LN HUMAN LLFE. 43 



influenced by, the infinite whole. From this point 
of view how unspeakably solemn appears our 
human-life! Almost every moment brings with it 
at once an opportunity to do right and a tempta- 
tion to do wrong. Everything we do or say leaves 
us somewhat different from our former selves, and 
makes us so much more of a power for good or for 
evil. 

We have seen that by solitude and soliloquy we 
can better hear God's message to man, and can 
better become acquainted with our own souls and 
the work which is carried on within them. There 
is another use of solitude and soliloquy. 

By them we are better able to form our plans and 
ideals for life. 

All great and successful workers work after 
ideals. Even God Himself works in this way, and 
His works are no greater than His plans. Take 
the crowning work of God, viz., the creation of 
man; that was done according to an ideal. The 
words of God, " Let us make man in our own 
image," is God's soliloquy, and it permits us to 
overhear God drafting His design of the man who 
is to be. Nature works after a pattern. There is 
a plan wrapped up in every seed. There is not 
a planless kernel of corn nor a planless grain of 
wheat in all the universe. The tree ripens to the 
grade of a purpose that was perfect before the tree 
grew. 

The painter works after a pattern. What he 



44 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



puts on the canvas has first been a live fact in his 
own thought. Beauty is prior to the brush. The 
musician is like the painter in his work ; he too is 
swayed by an ideal. The sheet of printed notes 
which he gives the world is simply a transcript of 
prior music which has been singing in his soul. 
If not, it is worth nothing. Raphael pictures St. 
Cecilia as entranced by the music that is inaudible. 
Every musician must first be a St. Cecilia. 

The architect joins the company of the painter 
and the musician. The building is constructed in 
his own mind before a single timber is cut or a 
single sod of the foundation is turned. 

Christian, you must join this company if you 
would excel. You must have definite conceptions 
of the graces out of which you intend to build your 
character. You must know what truth is, what 
genuine self-sacrifice is, what manliness is, what 
womanliness is. You must know what love is, and 
what it will do ; what sterling honesty is ; what 
faith is, and what are its ventures and conquests. 
All these things must be definite things to you, 
and toward these definite things you must con- 
stantly work. Toward all these things you must 
plan ; you must talk about them to self ; you must 
soliloquize, for according as a man soliloquizes so 
is he. 

/ wish to exalt the value of soliloquy. I wish 
to secure for it a greater use iii life. 

There is no more powerful way of presenting 



POWER OF SOLILOQUY IN HUMAN LIFE. 45 



thought than the form of soliloquy. One of the 
most powerful sermons I ever heard was preached 
by George MacDonald. It was upon the text, 
" Who by searching can find out the Almighty 
unto perfection? " and it was a soliloquy from be- 
ginning to end. The man in a holy rapture talked 
to his soul of what is knowable of God, and of the 
grandeur of God's unscalable majesty. In thrilling 
his own soul with a vision of God he thrilled every 
soul in the vast audience. Are not some of the 
grandest productions in literature soliloquies? 
That oft-quoted address to the soul by Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, a very gem in literature, is a so- 
liloquy. 

" Build thee more stately mansions, 0 my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy vaulted past! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea." 

As I have spoken of the words of Holmes, I 
might speak of the words of Cato on immortality. 
They are known in literature as Cato ' s Soliloquy, 
and are thus regiven by the pen of Addison : 

" It must be so, Plato, — thou reasonest well, — 
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
This longing after immortality? 
Or whence this secret dread or inward horror 
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 



4 6 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 
'Tis divinity that stirs within us : 
'Tis heaven itself that points out a hereafter, 
And intimates eternity to man." 

Time will not permit me to quote "The Dying 
Christian to His Soul," by Alexander Pope, nor 
" Jerusalem the Golde7i" by Bernard, a man who 
has left scores of addresses to his soul, which are 
all on fire with holy fervor. When a thinker wants 
to give practical and personal power to his thought, 
he casts it into the form of a soliloquy at white-heat. 

If soliloquy be a power among powers, we may 
expect to find it in the Book of books. We do. 
It has a large place and play in the biography 
of Bible characters. Nebuchadnezzar's soliloquy 
climaxed his pride and put him under the rod. 
" Is not this great Babylon which I have built by 
the power of my might?" The soliloquy of the 
rich farmer in the parable of Jesus put the climax 
upon his folly. The man had more than he could 
use. There were hundreds starving about him, 
but he determined to hoard. Finding his barns 
too small, he reasoned within himself, saying, 
"What shall I do, because I have no room where 
to bestow my fruits?" And he said, "This will I 
do : I will pull down my barns, and build greater ; 
and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 
And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much 
goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, 
eat, drink, and be merry." These soliloquies had 



PO WER OF SOLILOQ UY IN HUMAN LIFE. 4 7 

an influence upon the men. As the men solilo- 
quized so were they. There are brighter instances 
in the Holy Book. There is the instance of the 
prodigal son. It was his soliloquy that arrested 
his course in sin and that brought him back to his 
father. He said to himself, " How many hired 
servants are there in my father's house who have 
bread enough and to spare, and yet I am in dire 
want. I will arise and go to my father." And 
he arose and went. 

There is the instance of David. By a talk with 
his soul, and by testing it with questions, he rea- 
soned himself from the depths of despondency into 
the joys of confidence. " I commune with mine 
own heart : and my spirit made diligent search. 
Will the Lord cast off, forever? and will He be 
favorable no more ? Is His mercy clean gone for- 
ever? doth His promise fail forevermore? Hath 
God forgotten to be gracious ? . . . And I said, 
This is my infirmity : but I will remember the years 
of the right hand of the Most High." 

There is the instance of Queen Esther. By a 
soliloquy she nerved herself in a supreme moment 
for a supreme duty, and saved all Israel from the 
sword of Haman. The grandest picture in the 
story of her life is where she stands face to face 
with duty, and alone — alone in the place of peril ; 
alone in the place of resolution ; alone in the place 
of heroic action. She said to herself, " I will go ; 
and if I perish, I perish." When she entered the 



4 8 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



throne-room of Ahasuerus during that hour of 
awful venture, she entered with a beauty that had 
never before shone in her person. Her whole per- 
sonality was transfigured. She was beautiful with 
a threefold beauty : there was the beauty of her 
physical face and form; there was the beauty of 
a magnificent womanhood — every moral grace at 
work; and beyond all this there was the beauty 
of the Lord, which was in and upon her. This 
last beauty gave her face a splendor like that of 
the heroic Stephen. That day of soliloquy, when 
Queen Esther said to her soul, " I will go in unto 
the king; and if I perish, I perish," was the day 
when this woman of God put on her true royalty 
and ascended one of the thrones of history to rule 
and inspire human nature, in the realm of the 
heroic, for all time. 

As I draw this sermon to a close, I imagine I 
hear you say, " Give the sermon a practical turn ! 
You urge soliloquy upon us — give us some forms 
in which we can soliloquize. Put words into our 
mouths that we may talk to our souls. What shall 
we say to our souls? When Christ taught His 
disciples to pray He gave them a form. Give us a 
form." Would you have forms, then ask your 
soul, "Soul, art thou satisfied to remain what thou 
art, an eternal stereotype? Art thou worked up 
to thy highest possibilities? Seest thou nothing 
beyond?" Ask your soul the question: "Soul, 
understandest thou what true manhood is? What 



POWER OF SOLILOQUY IN HUMAN LIFE. 49 



is it in man that is man? What differentiates him 
from the animal creation around him? It is thy 
faculties which differentiate man from the animal, 
O soul. It is broad intellect, moral sense, the 
spiritual nature, the endowment of sentiments 
which inspire the idea of purity and of self-denial 
and of holy love. Soul, art thou observing the 
law of love, and living above the things of self? 
Art thou a man aspiring after high things? " Ask 
thy soul : " Soul, art thou willing to pay the price 
of being something more than moderate? Art 
thou willing to take advancement out of nerve and 
bone and brain and heart? To go the way of 
success means self-continence, and self-reliance, 
and self-sacrifice, and schooling, and training, and 
the abandonment of pleasure, and often a solitary 
journey. It means the girding of the mind, and 
the keeping of it at a high tension, and upon the 
utmost stretch. Art thou ready to pay this price 
for a character entire and round and complete? 
If not, the potential within thee will only reach a 
sight of the Promised Land and a grave in the wil- 
derness. Pay the price and win Canaan! Dare 
to do your duty at any cost, and believe me, even 
here, in the very midst of the darkness and the 
gloom, deep down in the depths of thy being, 
there will be peace, perfect peace, the peace of 
God which passeth all understanding." 

Art thou a business man steeped to the ears in 
trade? Ask thy soul: "Soul, what will it profit 



5o 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



a man even though he gain the whole world and 
lose his own soul ; or what will a man give in ex- 
change for his soul ? Has that man made a good 
bargain who has bartered his principles for wealth ? 
The world is only an ephemeral atom. At best it 
is only a golden drop in the immensities of God, 
and serves only as a comparison to illustrate the 
spiritual treasures which open before the soul." 

Art thou mourning under the losses which have 
overtaken thy lot? Ask thy soul: " Soul, what 
difference will these losses make to thee one hun- 
dred years hence? " 

Art thou a man out of Christ? Speak to your 
soul thus : " O soul, plead not, I entreat thee, for 
longer delay. Dost thou mean always to lead me 
on in the dark? Wilt thou fatally persuade me 
that there is time enough yet, while all the wise 
and all the good and all the holy, and God Him- 
self, are crying, 'Behold, nozu is the accepted time; 
behold, nozu is the day of salvation 'f O my soul, 
have mercy upon thyself ; yield thee to Him who 
made thee, who loves thee, and who waits to re- 
deem thee, and who, father-like, is keeping a place 
for thee in the home above." 

Art thou a man seeking a correct knowledge of 
thyself? Ask thy soul: " Soul, how much of a 
man am I ? What am I for benevolence ? What 
am t for faith? What am I for prayer? What 
am I for reverence? What am I for work? What 
am I for that which goes to make up genuine 



POWER OF SOLILOQUY IN HUMAN LIFE. 5 I 

character? Take away from me all that shall be 
taken away at the hour of death, and tell me just 
what I am. Moses, amid the solitude of Nebo, 
quitting his life-work and standing before God 
with nothing but his own personality, was grand. 
So was Elijah as he swept up the steeps of light 
in the chariot of fire. So was Paul as he stretched 
forth the hand of faith and laid hold of his crown. 
Is my personality, considered in itself, like the 
personalities of these men of God ? I charge thee, 
O soul, to make it such. For this dost thou exist, 
and for this end hast thou been endowed. I want 
to be Godlike. I want to live in such a way that 
there shall be voices going before me into the 
eternal world. I do not wish to enter heaven a 
mere nobody. When I pass within the gates I do 
not fancy hearing a saint here and there asking, 
' Who is he ? Whence came he? ' I want to live 
in such a way that when I ascend the angels of 
God will be proud to accompany me all the way, 
and the heavenly hosts will be rejoiced to greet 
me with a shout. Soul, it is thine to make such 
a future for me." 

My fellow-men, I close with the thought with 
which I began, viz., man is next to God. Grand 
possibilities are within our horizon. It is our duty 
to urge our souls to attain these. 

There are special seasons of soul-communion, 
when all the faculties of our being are enlarged, 
and when they are bathed in heavenly light: 



52 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



when our faith carries in it a vision; when our 
love is kindled into a bright consuming flame; 
when our personality is baptized with the Holy 
Ghost and is penetrated through and through with 
a mysterious force. These are the seasons for 
which we are to watch ; these are the seasons 
toward which we are to work ; these are the sea- 
sons in which we are to see to it that the soui 
forms its plans and maps out its career. If we 
take care of our soul during these seasons, our life 
will be grand enough to satisfy even God. 



III. 

THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 



III. 

THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 

"The face of Jesus Christ." — 2 Cor. 4: 6. 

ONLY very recently I noticed that this phrase 
was in the Word of God. I do not mean that I 
never saw it there before ; I must have seen it, for 
the verse in which it occurs has been a familiar 
text from boyhood. In my former reading the 
phrase did not strike the mind. It was only in 
this late reading that its letters seemed to blaze 
like letters of fire, and to leap from the printed 
page into the soul. Since then the phrase has 
taken hold of my thoughts, and I have found 
myself repeating it mentally, and interrogatively, 
"The face of Jesus Christ!" "The face of Jesus 
Christ!" 

The question which presses for an answer is this : 
How much is contained in the face of Jesus Christ? 
Our reply is, Everything. In the face of Jesus 
Christ shines the glory of God, for Christ is the 
Son of God. In the face of Jesus Christ is all 
that pertains to ideal humanity, for Christ is true 

55 



56 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



man. In the face of Jesus Christ is the history of 
redemption, for everything pertaining to redemp- 
tion is written there. To one who under the tui- 
tion of the Spirit has become an expert in reading 
the countenance, the different impressions of the 
face of Jesus Christ, engraved upon the pages of 
God's Book, form a pictorial history of redemption. 
The Bible is a photographic album. It is full of 
faces taken from God's camera. Chief among 
these faces is the face of Jesus. God's camera 
has been brought to bear upon His face frequently, 
and there are pictures here which give permanence 
to all of the varied scenes of His life. Let me 
venture an illustration. In this day of photograph 
and picture making there would be no difficulty in 
making a pictorial history of any of our heroes. 
You could easily tell the story of Ulysses S. Grant 
by means of a photographic album. In the open- 
ing page of the album you would insert the pict- 
ure of the young cadet at West Point. In the 
spaces following you would insert the picture of 
the youth receiving his first commission ; then the 
general leading the armies of the nation in the 
successive battles ; then the victor receiving the 
surrender of Lee ; then the President in the White 
House ; then the world-wide traveler, the honored 
guest in kings' palaces ; then the invalid in the 
sick-room ; and then the coffined form lying in 
state. Each picture would represent a period in 
the man's life, and all combined would give his 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 57 



full biography. In like manner God the Father 
has made a photographic album composed of the 
face of Jesus Christ. This album is the Bible. 
As we turn the divine Book the face of Jesus 
Christ looks up at us from its pages, and these 
different pictures of the one face taken together 
give us the biography of the most wonderful per- 
sonage. 

Before turning the pages of this divine album 
that we may look into some of the Christie faces 
which are there, let us seek clear ideas as to how 
the face of Jesus Christ is set before us in the 
Word. His face is not pictured as we would pict- 
ure the face of our friend. We would picture the 
peculiar and distinctive personal features of our 
friend, so as to give the shape of his physical form, 
the color of his hair, the complexion of his counte- 
nance, the color of his eyes. Our picture would 
be wholly physical. Not such is the picture of 
Christ on the page of the Bible. It is a human 
face, but it is not the face of any particular man. 
It is a race face, not an individual face. It deals 
not so much with features and attitudes as with 
inner disposition and soul. It uses features and 
attitudes to set before us the pulsing feelings and 
emotions which sway the man, and the virtues, 
graces, and purposes which make the man. The 
Bible presents the face of Jesus Christ, just as it 
presents the face of Stephen. From the Bible 
picture of Stephen we cannot tell the physical style 



58 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



of his face, or the cast of his countenance ; whether 
it was large or little, long or oval, soft or rugged , 
whether he carried dew or lightning in his eye; 
still we have a clear, clean-cut view of Stephen — 
that is, we know the very things we want to know 
of him ; we see him at his best, and we look upon 
that which is immortal in the man. The spiritual 
Stephen stands before us with his great, forgiving, 
and Christ-like love, and with his magnificent at- 
tributes of calmness, loyalty, and fearless courage. 
The Bible sets before us the face of Christ, just as 
it sets before us the angel-face of Stephen. 

It is a remarkable thing in the history of Christ 
that nowhere have we any clue to His physical 
identity. The world owns no material portraiture 
of His physical person. All the pictures of Christ 
by the great artists are mere fictions. They look 
no more like Christ than they look like Simon 
Peter or Nebuchadnezzar. More than this, not 
only has the world no material portraiture of the 
physical Christ, it has no authentic description of 
His material person by which He could be distin- 
guished from Zaccheus the little man, or Barthol- 
omew, who has nothing more than a name upon 
the sacred page. Coins and statues, in our New 
York Metropolitan Museum, reveal the features of 
the Roman contemporaries of Jesus ; history gives 
a more or less accurate pen-picture of the physical 
face and form of the great men of Greece, Socrates 
and Demosthenes and Pericles; but of Him, the 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 



59 



one historic personage of whose form and face the 
whole world most desires some knowledge, there 
is not a trace in the Bible. You cannot tell 
whether He was of moderate height or tall; 
whether His eyes were hazel or piercing black. 
You cannot tell one personal peculiarity of His 
which gave Him His individual look. The con- 
ventional heads of Christ are the manufacture of 
the merest fancy. The would-be descriptive letter 
of Publius Lentulus is a fabrication of the fourth 
century, and the story that the face of Christ im- 
printed itself upon the handkerchief of the holy 
Veronica is a pure myth of papal Rome. Why 
this absence of Christ in marble, or Christ on the 
canvas, or Christ on the face of ancient coins? 
Why this paralysis of pen, this silence of inspired 
biographers ? I believe it is from God. God sets 
Christ forth as a man, and not as any particular 
man, that He may not be localized, or nationalized, 
but that He may be what He is, the Son of man, 
the Son of the race, and that He may belong to 
the wide world. As His face is pictured on the 
Bible page, a man of any nation can come to Him 
and feel kinship. If He were particularized and 
localized — if, for example, He were made a man 
with a pale face, then the man of the ebony face 
would feel that there was a greater distance be- 
tween Christ and him than between Christ and his 
white brother. As it is, there is neither white nor 
black in Jesus. He is a man. That is all. And 



6o 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



wherever you find a man, black or white, Christ is 
his brother. This is what the Caucasian feels when 
he looks at the face of Christ in the Bible album ; 
this is what the Mongolian feels ; this is what the 
African feels. In the church to which I minister, 
Caucasian and Mongolian and African sit together 
at the Lord's table, and we all think alike of Jesus, 
and we all feel that He is alike our brother. 

We are satisfied with this way of presenting 
the face of Jesus Christ. While we do not have 
His features as we have the features of Caesar or 
Napoleon or Washington, we have His mind, His 
purposes, His moral qualities, His spiritual nature. 
Enough is told us of His face to bring these out, 
and these fully satisfy us. After all, is it not the 
aim of true art in painting the human face to set 
forth these qualities? Are not these called the 
essence of the man? A true artist is not satisfied 
with painting the surface correctly, with merely 
giving features in their most exact proportions ; 
he is not satisfied with putting mere physical 
beauty upon the canvas. A face beautiful merely 
as to the physical, a face with lips modeled from 
Cupid's bow, with chin of Grecian type, with ears 
like pearly shells, with cheeks white and ruddy, 
with hair black and glossy, and rippling in waves, 
and with eyes large and dark — a face such as this 
will not satisfy a true artist. To him it is like a 
false gem. It is worthless. Nay, more, it is worse 
than worthless, because it mocks him with its flash- 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 6 1 

ing, and its false resemblances. To him it is like 
a musical rhyme without sense or meaning. Such 
a face lacks the main essentials ; it lacks spiritual 
life; it lacks the characteristics of an indwelling 
mind. While the true artist puts the features 
upon the canvas in exact proportions, he considers 
his work a failure unless from the face the char- 
acter and the life and the soul of the man look out. 
He wants the face to be the window of the soul. 
He wants it to represent the man, so that when 
we become thoroughly acquainted with him and 
know his inner and secret history we could not 
imagine it possible for him to have a different face. 
The face of Jesus Christ, as it looks up at us from 
the holy page, realizes the highest aim of true art. 
It introduces us to a living man. It makes His 
great attributes burn and thrill. It chronicles His 
tragic history. It opens a wide window into His 
nature. 

Let us turn the pages of the Bible album and 
look, for a moment or two, into some of the faces 
of Jesus Christ which we find there. As we have 
not time to look at all of these faces, our study 
must be suggestive, not exhaustive. 

I. The first face of Jesus Christ which meets our 
eye in turning the pages of the Bible album is 
The Heroic Face. 

"And it came to pass, when the time was come 
that He should be received up, He steadfastly set 
His face to go to Jerusalem " (Luke 9 : 51), 



62 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Look into that face turned Jerusalem- ward. It 
is a mirror. It reflects every dark thing which 
awaits Jesus at the Judaean metropolis. He saw 
all — the betrayal, the desertion, the calumnies, the 
false testimony, the scourge, the crown of thorns, 
the cross, the divine desertion, and the dark tomb. 
And yet He kept His face fronting these awful 
realities, and His feet moving toward them. That 
fixed face, reflecting the dark future in Jerusalem, 
is full of revelations and thoughts concerning Jesus 
Christ which ought to move our souls, and which 
ought to react in our fidelity to Him and His 
cause. My soul, what seest thou in this heroic 
face of Jesus Christ? I see there the whole cov- 
enant of God.' The eternal purpose and decree of 
God are in and back of and beneath that face. 
The deliberate decision of Jesus, after a thorough 
canvass of every dark and coming thing, is in that 
face. The resolution of the infinite and unchang- 
ing love of the Saviour is in that face. The con- 
scious and voluntary self-sacrifice of Christ is in 
that face. The whole mission of the Son of God 
into this world is in that face. All of the features in 
the fixed face speak, and unitedly they utter with 
solemn emphasis the one purpose which sways the 
entire being of Jesus : " I have a baptism to be 
baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be 
accomplished." 

That face tells us that every faculty and power 
of Christ was strained to its utmost tension. The 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 



63 



cross cast a black shadow from Jerusalem to the 
spot where He stood, and so dark did it make the 
way that every step which He took was a new 
sacrifice of self. Walking from this spot to Cal- 
vary was like walking into a dark, dank tunnel — it 
was a passage from light to central darkness. 

Do not undervalue the heroism of Jesus as seen 
in this face. He did not find it easy to walk to 
Jerusalem. There were ten thousand obstacles 
between Him and the city of crucifixion. The 
sorrowful faces of His disciples were in the way. 
It took the rudeness of an unalterable resolution 
to say to the devoted Peter, who led the opposition 
of His heart-broken friends, " Get thee behind Me, 
Satan." The shrinking of His sensitive humanity 
stood in the way. It took all the arguments and 
motives that could be drawn from the covenant of 
eternity, and from the wretched condition of the 
hopelessly lost for whom He was to die, to brace 
His quivering nerves and His shrinking flesh and 
blood, and to give His human hand the power to 
lift the cup to His lips and turn it over so that 
He might drain it to the bitter dregs. " He stead- 
fastly set His face!" The words imply a desper- 
ate conflict, and victory won only by means of it. 
This hero-face of our Redeemer speaks of the 
constraint of every faculty of Jesus in the formation 
of His resolution to die for our sins. It tells us of 
the operation of the energy of the Godhead. 

We value the heroic face of Jesus Christ. It 



6 4 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



helps to set forth the fierceness of the battle of 
Calvary, which He won as our champion. It sets 
before us just what true heroism is. It inspires us 
to a like heroism. That face has been an untold 
power in the world. It made the apostles Peter 
and John, and their colleagues. It made the mar- 
tyrs of Jesus, Stephen and James and John Huss 
and Jerome of Prague. It made the reformers 
Zwingli and Knox and Luther. That face will be 
a power so long as the Church of Jesus Christ 
lasts. It will continue to make heroes of faith, 
and to shame the indifference and coldness of 
professed Christians. 

II. The second face of Jesus Christ which meets 
us as we turn the pages of the Bible album is THE 
Face Fouled and Bruised by Human Con- 
tempt and Intolerance. 

"And they did spit in His face, and buffeted 
Him." 

"And when they had blindfolded Him they 
struck Him on the face." 

We would fain turn this page of the album with- 
out looking at this face, but we dare not. Its 
study is essential to a full history of Christ. It is 
a most mortifying picture. But it is true to life. 
Filthy villains fouled His clean and holy cheeks, 
and demon- moved men drove their fists into His 
face. God's camera photographed the scene on 
the instant, and gave it a dark immortality. As 
we turn God's album, we dare not pass this picture. 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 65 

We must study it until these dark facts are burned 
into our consciousness, viz., His blessed face bore 
the kiss of human treason, and the spittle of human 
contempt, and the stinging blow of human anger 
and prejudice. 

We must look upon this picture as bringing us 
two revelations. It is a revelation of the patience 
of Jesus. Did He resent this treatment? No. 
There is not a man breathing who would not have 
resented it. He maintained a golden silence. He 
wielded the power of forbearance and forgiveness, 
and showed the world that it is mightier than the 
power of brute force and resentment. Many of 
these very men who maltreated Him were led to 
believe in Him, and to cry for salvation through 
the blood which they shed. Could He not have 
delivered Himself ? He could. Omnipotence slum- 
bered in His arm. He could have scorched these 
wretches of humanity to ashes by a single glance 
of His eye. Did He feel the indignity heaped 
upon Him ? Yes ; He was sensitive beyond con- 
ception to the treatment which He received from 
men. He had uttered this touching lament over 
non-appreciation, " Ye will not come unto Me that 
ye may have life." He said, "Reproach hath 
broken My heart." He was keenly sensitive, and 
yet He bore all this indignity without a murmur; 
for this was the God-appointed way of saving man. 
To save man the Son of God was willing to do 
anything and to bear anything. This is what we 



66 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



are taught by the picture of His face fouled by 
human contempt. 

But the picture is not only a revelation of Christ, 
it is a revelation of humanity. 

You grow indignant when you think how the 
men of Christ's day treated Him. You say, " If 
any set of men in this nineteenth century had 
treated Abraham Lincoln or General Grant as the 
Jews treated Jesus, the whole nation would have 
become insane with rage, and would not have rested 
until vengeance had done its work." Your de- 
nunciation of the men who insulted and crucified 
Christ knows no bounds. Do not be so fierce. 
Remember David when he looked at the demon- 
figure which Nathan held before him. Remember 
the indignation and denunciation of the Pharisees 
when Christ held before them the picture of the 
murdered son. Your indignation is indignation 
heaped upon self, and upon the nature which you 
brought with you into the world and in which you 
live. Have you never been stirred by the ques- 
tions, " Why did the will of God require Jesus to 
suffer from wicked men in the way in which He 
did? Why did not God command fire to leap 
from the skies and consume Christ as a sacrifice, 
just as He sent fire and consumed Elijah's sacrifice 
on Carmel? Why were the expiatory sufferings 
to be made up of insults, and calumnies, and per- 
secutions, and tortures, inflicted by the hands of 
the men whom He came to save?" The answer 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 



6 7 



is this. God in this way intended to give human 
nature a revelation of itself. Men need this reve- 
lation. There is no revelation that they need more, 
save the revelation of redemption. Men write 
humanity too high. They must write it down. 
The air is full of the fulsome praises of humanity 
sung by a cultured and an ultra liberalism. 
"Humanity!" How they dwell upon the word, 
and draw out every letter and every syllable as 
though it were the only golden word in the vocab- 
ulary of man. They could not ring more music 
into the word " divinity " than they ring into the 
word "humanity." They discourse upon the pos- 
sibilities of humanity. They tell of the achieve- 
ments of humanity. They dilate upon the evolu- 
tion of humanity. They present the self-sufficiency 
of humanity. They set humanity forth as having 
in itself the germs of all possible good. In the 
presence of the face of Jesus Christ fouled with 
the spittle of human contempt, we drive the nail 
of truth through the head of this fatal error. 
Humanity of itself, and unregenerated by the 
Spirit of God, has in it only the germs that grow 
into the crucifixion of Christ with all the horrible 
crimes connected with that crucifixion. Humanity 
in itself is only moral rubbish. If it ever becomes a 
moral cosmos, it must become so by the operation 
of a divine power outside of itself. God Himself 
must come down to man and lift man. Humanity, 
following its own bent, means demonized passions 



68 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



which will strike the Son of God in the face, and 
profane His pure cheek. 

God has given us this face of Jesus Christ to 
humble us and to convict us of sin, and to show 
us the trend of our nature when it is ungoverned 
by His restraining and sanctifying grace. He 
would have us turn to our soul and say, " O my 
soul, thou art the criminal!" Through this face 
He charges us with guilt, just as Christ charged 
the Pharisees with the blood of the saints from 
righteous Abel to murdered Zacharias. They 
were the children of murderers, because they in- 
herited the spirit of their fathers. Humanity 
belongs to the confederacy of evil which treated 
Jesus shamefully. The world crucified Christ. 
All ages past and present were represented in that 
solemn drama. You and I were there. Our 
nature was there. It was a human mouth that 
profaned that sacred face ; it was a human fist that 
bruised it; it was a human hand that held the 
crucificial hammer and drove the nails through His 
quivering nerves. And back of that mouth and 
fist and hand were the very passions and feelings 
which throb in our souls to-day. Stand by this 
face which thou hast profaned, O humanity, and 
learn the dark possibilities of thy nature. Stand 
by this face and mourn, O my soul. 

III. Another face meets us in turning the leaves 
of the Bible album: it is The Face in THE 
Dust, 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 



6 9 



"And He went a little farther and fell on His 
face and prayed, O My Father, if it be possible 
let this cup pass from Me." 

"The purpose of His heart is ripening, the 
divine decree is coming to the utterance of its last 
syllable, the prophecy which has been the poetry 
and light of the world is now about to pass into 
stern history, and the transition fills the Saviour 
with agony." It brings His face into the dust. 
You can see that there is a weight crushing Christ. 
You can see that His agony is awful ; it is a soul 
agony ; it is an agony which no other soul ever 
knew. It had to be endured without human sym- 
pathy, because it was outside of the pale of human 
knowledge. The best of humanity and the truest 
of earthly friends slept when Jesus struggled in 
Gethsemane. His soul was sore amazed, and was 
exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. Sorrow- 
ful emotions, like tidal waves, rolled through His 
soul. " Deep called unto deep." Gethsemane 
was to the prostrate form with His face in the dust 
Calvary before its time. His soul ran ahead and 
anticipated all that was coming, and rolled it up 
into one great wave ; ere He knew it the wave 
dashed over Him and overwhelmed Him. What 
was it that agonized the soul of Jesus? Not the 
fact that death awaited Him ; not the conse- 
quences of death ; but the mode of His death. He 
was about to be branded as a sinner, and treated 
as a sinner, and put to death as a sinner. He was 



70 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



about to come into contact with sin. This was 
what appalled Him. The agony which buried His 
face in the dust was His horror of sin. Geth- 
semane means simply Christ shrinking from sin. 
He had consented to take the law-place of the sin- 
ner, and to be treated as though He were a sinner, 
and to be executed as a sinner, and now when He 
anticipates Calvary, the reality of what He had 
consented to be and to do breaks in upon Him, 
and He shrinks back for a moment and cries for 
relief. When He consented He thought He knew 
all that would overtake Him : but now He finds 
that He knew nothing. He had to reconsecrate 
Himself to His mission, and to struggle against 
His shrinking from sin until He sweat great drops 
of blood. " The Book of Martyrs," says Dr. C. 
S. Robinson, " tells us of a disciple of Christ who 
was condemned to death by being put in a sack 
with venomous serpents. He thought he knew all 
that this fearful sentence meant. He tried for 
days to accustom his mind to the contemplation. 
Forcefully he held his imagination up to the horror 
of the doom by dwelling upon it, and by saying to 
himself, ' I can bear it for Christ my Master.' And 
yet when plunged in among the hideous reptiles, 
the moment he felt their cold, crawling folds 
against his flesh he lifted his voice in one wild 
scream of fright and horror. He knew then what 
he never could foresee, the utter, utter loathing he 
felt." Christ had often contemplated His treat- 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 7 1 

ment as a sinner, but in Gethsemane the reality 
broke in upon Him with such unexpected force 
that it threw Him to the ground in a paralysis of 
horror and grief, and buried His face in the dust. 

IV. The next face of Jesus Christ which looks 
up at us from this Bible album is The Face 
awfully Marred. 

" His visage was marred more than any man's, 
and His form more than the sons of men." 

This is the face of Christ when sin and suffering 
have completed their work. Everything is over, 
and the face lies cold in death. Every line in it 
says, " He was a man of sorrows and acquainted 
with grief." The hand of time takes the human 
face and works into it every experience through 
which the man passes, just as the sculptor works 
his thoughts into a piece of Carrara marble. The 
whole of your past life is expressed in some form 
in your face. God can read it there as easily as 
though it were printed in a book. Even your 
fellow-man can read much of it. In Christ's face 
the whole of His human life was expressed. This 
is the face out of which His earthly experience 
looked : " His visage was marred more than any 
man's." Everything wore that face. Read its 
wrinkles and furrows and cross-lines ! Here is the 
deep furrow run by the divine desertion, which 
called out the cry, " Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani." 
Here is the ugly scar which the kiss of treason left. 
How it wears a face to come through a bereave- 



72 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



ment ! Here are the lines which tell how deeply 
His groaning spirit was moved at the grave of 
Bethany. How it wears the face to see those 
whom we love meeting the doom of their sin! 
Oh the horror and pain which pierce the parent's 
heart when it hears the crash of the prison door 
as it shuts his condemned boy into the cell ! He 
would not heed parental warning, nor accept par- 
ental guidance. He would go to his doom. One 
day of such grief will put ten years of age upon a 
parent's face. Here are the furrows which Christ's 
grief over the doom of Jerusalem plowed. Here 
are the lines which the scalding tears burned into 
His cheeks. Yes, in this face awfully marred we 
have all the sorrowful experience of Jesus. The 
temptation! Kedron! The betrayal! The de- 
sertion! The reproach! The non-appreciation! 
The pang of thirst ! The pang of the hiding of 
the Father's face and the pang of death! 

His earthly career was enough to mar any face, 
and especially a face which belonged to a nature 
so exquisitely constructed. Look on the marred 
face of Jesus Christ, and read the terrible nature 
of sin! Look on the marred face of Jesus Christ, 
and learn the wonderful price paid for your re- 
demption. 

The faces of Christ which we have seen thus far 
are darkly shaded ; but dark shading is not the 
characteristic of all the faces of Christ found in the 
Bible album. There are. faces here which beam 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 



73 



with majesty and splendor : faces overflowing with 
divine beauty and light. 

V. Among the bright faces we have The 
Transfigured Face. 

" And His face did shine as the sun and His 
raiment was white as the light." 

The transfigured face is a symbol of the divinity 
of Jesus. It sets Him forth as the coeternal Son 
of God. It teaches us that He who was infolded 
by the Pillar of Fire in the days of Moses, and was 
called Jehovah by the Hebrews, is now infolded 
by a human body and is called Jesus Christ. 
Light is the symbol of God. " God is light, and 
in Him is no darkness at all." When, therefore, 
we see divine radiance breaking forth in over- 
awing grandeur through the worn and tired human- 
ity of Jesus, like an inner light flashing through a 
crystal vase, we are compelled to accept of His 
deity, and to teach that " in Him dwelleth all the 
fullness of the Godhead bodily." His face shone 
with Shekinah splendor, because He was the She- 
kinah. Underneath the transfigured face the in- 
spired Paul writes this inscription : " He was the 
brightness of the Father's glory and the express 
image of His person." 

Why have we this transfigured face? What is 
the purport of the transfiguration scene in the his- 
tory of Jesus? That brief night of glory on the 
mount was meant to play an important part in His 
history. It was designed to reveal the real person 



74 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



hidden in that human body, and in this way to 
interpret the human life of Jesus and to declare 
its purpose. The life of Christ had been misinter- 
preted ; all manner of falsehoods had been uttered 
against Him. Men were not able to understand 
His life, or place upon it a proper value. The 
transfiguration came to their help. It gave the 
world the key with which to open it. This is the 
key : the person who lives this life is a divine 
person. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. This 
fact transfigures the whole earthly life of Jesus. 
We see God in it, living among men, and giving 
the world the freshest, and clearest, and fullest, 
and most cognizable revelation of Himself. He 
speaks to men' in the eloquence of a divine life. 
This revelation is better than the face of God in 
nature, beautiful as nature is to-day in its autumnal 
splendor. It is better than the autograph of God 
on the tables of stone. It is better than the writ- 
ings of inspired penmen. There is not a truth in 
nature, or in the moral law, or in the Inspired 
Book, which is not found expressed in the life of 
Jesus. He embodied all holy principles. He up- 
held righteousness, and at the same time declared 
mercy. He magnified the law, and at the same 
time expressed infinite love. When we look into 
the face of history the different attributes of God 
seem to clash ; but in the life of Jesus, all the at- 
tributes of God are brought into play, and they 
work together in perfect harmony. Once grasp 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 



75 



the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and 
you will see in His life " God manifest in the flesh." 
In every deed of His daily life you will see a 
gospel, or an epistle, or an apocalypse, in which 
you can read the nature and will of God. Is His 
transfiguration face a picture of reality ? Then the 
virtues and principles and dispositions which Jesus 
exemplified in His daily living are fac-similes of 
God. They are the features of absolute deity, and 
reveal the face of the Father. Is His transfigu- 
ration face the outburst of indwelling divinity? 
Then Jesus Christ is the glory of God. He is 
Immanuel! God with us. In Him we see how 
God lives and loves and pities and consoles, and 
hates pretension and hypocrisy. In Him we see 
how God pardons sin, and cures infirmities, and re- 
generates character, and transforms human nature 
into the beauties of holiness. 

VI. The next bright face of Christ as we turn 
the Bible album is The Face on the Great 
White Throne. 

We can only recognize the fact that this face is 
there. 

VII. One face more, and with it we close the 
album; it is The Flashing Face amid the 
Golden Candlesticks. 

"And in the midst of the seven golden candle- 
sticks was one like unto the Son of man; and 
His countenance was as the sun shining in his 
strength." 



76 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



The golden candlesticks are symbols of the 
Church. The face of Christ amid the golden 
candlesticks is the face of our Mediatorial King, 
who reigns for the triumph of the Church. Into 
the marred face of Jesus we read every dark thing 
in the career of Christ ; into the flashing face amid 
the golden candlesticks we must read every bright 
thing. In it is the triumph of the cross, and the 
gladness of the resurrection, and the song of the 
ascension, " Lift up your heads, O ye gates." In 
it is the coronation of heaven, and by anticipation 
the coronation of earth. In the face buried in the . 
dust we saw a reflection of the dark past ; in the 
flashing face amid the golden candlesticks we see 
a reflection of the glorious future. For there is a 
glorious future for Christ, and that on the very 
scene of His humiliation. He must be crowned 
where He was crucified. Prophecy says that He 
shall be. I cannot tell how long it will be before 
we see the sunburst of that prophetic day ; but I 
can confidently assert that we shall see the sun- 
burst. Here it is in the Book. The notes of 
Christ's triumph ring from Eden of Genesis to 
Paradise of Revelation. The predictions of tri- 
umph flash like electric jets against the black sky 
of night. The song of triumph is fully written 
out, and we are only waiting. Waiting for what? 
Why, waiting for the singing time to come. When 
it comes human voices on earth will join with angel 
voices in heaven, and like the sound of many 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 



77 



waters, and like the peal of mighty thunders, they 
will swell the grand anthem : " Alleluia, the Lord 
God Omnipotent reigneth. The kingdoms of this 
world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and 
of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and 
ever." 

A final word or two. 

I. Our treatment of the face of Jesus Christ is 
an index of our character. 

When MacGregor's boy was stolen during the 
war between the Scottish clans, and made to ex- 
change clothes with a peasant boy, he revealed his 
identity even in peasant clothes by the way in 
which he used the things of the palace. The ques- 
tion to be decided was, Which of the lads is Mac- 
Gregor's son ? This was the method of discovery. 
Both lads were brought into the palace and 
watched. On entering the palace the peasant boy 
threw himself down to sleep upon the straw bed 
in the servants' apartment, for such was his wont 
— he was born and reared in these apartments — 
but MacGregor's boy on entering the palace 
spurned the bed of straw and chose the best couch 
in the palace. Everybody said as they looked 
upon the sleeping boy, at home in the best bed of 
the palace, "That is MacGregor's son." We are 
known by the way we appreciate and use our 
Christian privileges. Among our privileges is 
access to the face of Jesus Christ. If we avail 
ourselves of this privilege frequently, if we are 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



often found studying this face in its different 
aspects, and preaching the great facts worked into 
it, we indicate a familiarity with Christ, and a 
knowledge of Christ, and a desire and a love to- 
ward Christ. We indicate that we are born from 
above and are the sons of God. 

2. The face of Christ affords an inexhaustible 
and soul-satisfying study. 

Travelers tell us that sometimes they find the 
path leading to the fountain of the desert strewn 
with the bones of those who have perished from 
thirst. They even find skulls, whitened and 
bleached, bending over the very edge of the fount- 
ain. Why? The men dying with thirst discov- 
ered upon reaching the cistern that the cistern was 
broken and empty. Christ is not a broken cistern. 
The world is. Human philosophy is. Christ is 
the fountain of life full and inexhaustible. John 
Stuart Mill once worried himself sad lest the com- 
bination of musical sounds might some day be 
exhausted. Demonstration showed him his folly. 
The combinations of music which are possible 
are absolutely inexhaustible. There are thousands 
of oratorios as yet unborn. Christ is infinitely 
farther from exhaustion than music is. He will 
be able to fill and to delight the immortal man 
throughout eternity. Looking forward to his 
awakening from the grave, the Hebrew poet sings, 
"As for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteous- 
ness : I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy 
likeness." John in Patmos, when he wanted to 



THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. 



79 



put a climax upon his description of the blessed- 
ness of those who walk the golden streets and live 
in the celestial city, wrote, " They shall see His 
face." He could think of nothing equal to that, 
and there is nothing equal to that ; for seeing His 
face means transformation into His likeness. " We 
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 
The cloud cannot look into the face of the sun 
without being made to glow with its splendor; 
neither can Moses look upon the glory of God 
without being lit with dazzling luster. The high- 
est prayer which Christ found it possible to pray 
for us was, " Father, I will that they also, whom 
Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am ; 
that they may behold My glory." 

Let us daily study and contemplate the face of 
our Master, and as we contemplate it let us in 
prayer ask God for help. Lord, help us to look 
aright into the face of Jesus Christ. Give us open 
eyes. Regale our spiritual sight. May our vis- 
ion of Christ thrill us and excite suitable emotion 
within us. May it start new ideas, rekindle old 
memories, awaken fresh sympathies, revive former 
impressions, deepen long-made convictions and 
resolutions which have been born of heaven, and 
stir our souls to their innermost depths, so that 
they may join in the song of Christ which is des- 
tined to be universal, " Worthy is the Lamb that 
was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, 
and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." 
Amen. 



IV. 



STRAIGHTFORWARD SPEECH AND GENUINE 
LIFE. 



IV. 



STRAIGHTFORWARD SPEECH AND 
GENUINE LIFE. 

" Let your yea be yea ; and your nay, nay." — James 5 : 12. 

My text is ethical and not doctrinal. This is as 
it should be, for Christianity is not exclusively a 
creed. It is chiefly and ultimately a life. It is 
true that it brings the world grand doctrines and 
sublime truths and everlasting principles, and it is 
true also that it demands that the Christian Church 
shall make such a brief and reasonable and crystal- 
line statement of these as will make all skepticism 
concerning them ridiculous ; but it does not, in 
so doing, look upon grand doctrines and sublime 
truths and everlasting principles as an end. It 
treats them only as a means to an end. The end 
which Christianity is seeking is a holy and a grand 
and a sublime life. The ultimatum to which 
Christianity is pushing man is grand doctrines 
translated into a true and a living faith ; sublime 
truths embodied in a noble and influential char- 
acter; and everlasting principles incarnated into 

83 



8 4 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



an unmistakable and shining Christian life. The 
Christian religion proclaims and insists upon the 
purest and highest ethics. If it did not, it would 
not be any better than the philosophies of the 
world; and Christ would not be one whit in 
advance of those teachers who do not make half 
the claims which He makes. Last week I took 
down from the shelf of my library the writings of 
Epictetus, that teacher who was born a Roman 
slave, and turned the pages of his two volumes to 
refresh my memory as to what he taught. I found 
there beautiful disquisitions upon every cardinal 
virtue that goes to make up that which we call 
high morality. He insists upon the purest kind 
of ethics in every relation of human life. He lays 
down masterful rules for the government of self. 
If Christ did not insist upon the purest and the 
highest ethics He would be outdone and surpassed 
by Epictetus. 

It is charged against the Christian Church to- 
day that it expends too much effort upon the 
insistence of doctrine, and too little effort upon the 
insistence of a holy and beautiful and morally 
rounded ethical life. The charge may be true ; I 
neither affirm it nor deny it. But this I do affirm : 
when the charge is true the fault is not with Christ, 
nor with Christianity, it is with me, and with other 
teachers like me, who fail to give ethics their true 
emphasis and their true proportion and their true 
prominence. 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



85 



If any one wishes to see how Christianity 
preaches ethics, let him study the epistle which 
gives us our text, and let him also study the Ser- 
mon on the Mount, the greatest utterance of Jesusj 
to which this epistle is so largely a parallel. These 
writings are ethical from A to Z. They show that 
Christianity is so ethical that it means to carry 
ethics into the very center of a man's soul, making 
pure and right and lofty not only his conduct, but 
also his thoughts and motives and desires and in- 
ner disposition. 

What does Jesus do in the Sermon on the 
Mount? He simply lifts before mankind the 
standard of living. He says no spiritual fervor 
can make up for want of ethical correctness. He 
puts gospel righteousness side by side with the 
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, to the 
exaltation of gospel righteousness. Take one case 
in point, viz., His interpretation of the sixth com- 
mandment. The scribes and Pharisees confined 
the violation of that commandment to literal acts — 
to blows and violence which struck a man lifeless. 
Jesus says to them, " This is very low morality. 
This minimizes the precept. The precept is more 
wholesome than that, and far broader. I say unto 
you, that true ethics require you not only to avoid 
striking killing blows, but they require you to seek 
those dispositions of heart which are farthest re- 
moved from the infliction of injury. You must be 
your brother's keeper. Thou shalt not strike the 



86 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



killing blow ! True ; but more than that, thou shalt 
not speak the hurting word against thy fellow-man, 
nor call him by the degrading name. Your fellow- 
man has a right to claim your respect and rever- 
ence for his manhood ; he has a right to stand high 
in your mind. There is but a short step from 
degrading him in your mind to inflicting injury 
upon him with your hand. Whatever makes the 
heart murderous is a violation of the spirit of the 
commandment; now murderous thoughts and 
murderous words do this. 'Thou shalt not kill ! * 
According to My ethics, that means thou shalt 
love thy brother-man, and thou shalt surround him 
with the defenses of love." Such is Christ's sixth 
commandment. It is a great advance upon the 
sixth commandment which only says : Thou shalt 
not fire the fatal ball ; thou shalt not administer 
the deadly poison ; thou shalt not drive the mur- 
derous dagger to the heart of thy fellow-man. 

The text is another instance of gospel ethics. 
It sets forth the ethics of Christ under another 
commandment, the ninth commandment — the com- 
mandment which enjoins upon man the duty of 
truth-speaking. And here James and Jesus agree. 
They use precisely the same words. James was 
the brother of Jesus ; both were sons of Mary, and 
both possessed the same mental characteristics, 
and both gave the world writings which are text- 
books in morals. 

In expounding the commandment to which our 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



87 



text refers, the scribes and Pharisees said : " If you 
take an oath, do not perjure yourself ; do not 
evade your oath; do not make it a dead letter; 
let there be no perjury or false swearing, or tram- 
pling under foot of sacred oaths." In reviewing 
this interpretation, Jesus says : " Ye scribes and 
Pharisees, while this is good so far as it goes, it 
goes but a little way ; it is a very meager advance 
in the right direction; My righteousness would 
have you so truthful in the core of your being, 
so constantly straightforward in your speech, that 
you should never need an oath ; it would have you 
so sincere in heart that an oath should be super- 
fluous ; it would renovate your nature so that you 
shuold by a divine compulsion always express 
yourself in words simple and transparent." 

In the eyes of Jesus Christ it is simply mon- 
strous that a man cannot be truthful unless he is 
sworn, and unless he speaks under the threat of 
the punishment of perjury. If an oath be neces- 
sary to make him tell the truth, he is a liar in his 
make-up. There are some men who not only tell 
lies, but they are lies themselves. They are false 
through and through. Such is the ethics of Jesus 
Christ, that He would educate the world up to a 
point where there should be no need of a man 
swearing or affirming or declaring. He gives man- 
kind a standard of morals that is nothing short 
of the heroic. He would have every man so true 
that his life should be a transparent yea and nay — 



88 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



i.e., a life lived on straight lines: no adulteration 
of the truth in it ; no insincerity in it ; no equivo- 
cation in it ; no trafficking in false appearances in 
it; no hiding behind an ambush of words in it; 
no circumlocution in it ; no simulation in it ; but 
everything real and open and aboveboard. He 
would have a man so genuine in the roots of his 
being that those who knew him best could truth- 
fully say of him what Julia of Verona said of her 
lover Proteus : 

" His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles; 
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate; 
His tears pure messengers, sent from his heart ; 
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth." 

This monosyllabic text, which calls us to a 
monosyllabic life, gives us one of the manifold 
definitions of the Christian life. The Christian 
life is a life of truth- speaking. It is a life in 
which our words match our thoughts, and our 
thoughts fit the facts. This is not a peculiar defi- 
nition of the Christian life ; neither is it a trivial 
definition. I know of no way that a Christian can 
be a greater power than by the right ordering of 
his speech. The faculty of speech is the great- 
est gift of God to man, and by no faculty can we 
make the power of God which dwells within us so 
largely felt by our fellow-men. I do not wonder, 
therefore, that nearly every writer in the Book of 
God exalts the duty of keeping the door of one's 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



8 9 



lips. Job exclaims : " Fitly spoken words, how 
good they are!" Solomon writes : "Words fitly 
spoken are like apples of gold in baskets of silver." 
Paul exhorts the members of the different 
churches : " Let your speech be always with grace, 
seasoned with salt;" "and lie not one to an- 
other;" "but speak the truth in love." He ranks 
the sins of speech in parallel columns with the 
grossest forms of the animal passions. John, the 
revelator, cannot write the sublime passages of his 
Apocalypse and tell of the glories of the good and 
true without throwing in a Rembrandt picture, 
full of black shades, revealing the final doom of 
the untruthful : "All liars shall have their part in 
the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." 
Luke cannot write the story of the early Church 
without giving in detail the judgment which over- 
took Ananias and Sapphira, who were struck dead 
before the whole church — the one for acting a lie, 
and the other for speaking a lie. The narrative of 
this judgment is intended to fill us so full of the 
fear of God that this fear will drive out from our 
hearts the fear of man. It is the fear of man that 
leads us to prevaricate and misrepresent until we 
wholly lack exactitude and trustworthiness. The 
story says : Think of God. Speak as in His sight. 
Order your words before Him. What He thinks 
is the important thing, for His decision settles 
destiny. 

To these Scriptures we must add that in which 



go 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Jesus teaches us concerning speech. In Him 
brighter and brighter grows the light which 
searches out all wrong, and finer and finer become 
the meshes which catch and sift out and reveal the 
unfitness which mars the character of those who 
should be pure in heart. These are the Master's 
words : " I say unto you that every idle word that 
men shall utter, they shall give account thereof in 
the day of judgment ; for by thy words shalt thou 
be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be con- 
demned." These words are pungent and sobering 
to thought. They ought to stimulate to moral 
earnestness. Do they mean that if I speak an idle 
word, or a trivial word, that that word will doom 
me forever to banishment from God and consign 
me forever to hopeless degradation? Certainly 
not. The words of Jesus are severe, but they are 
not so severe as that. They do say that every 
idle word is a deteriorating force, and consequently 
ought to be avoided ; but they do not make the 
one idle word the sole basis of the judgment placed 
opposite our names. Our other words will be 
taken into the account as well — our good words 
and true words and brave words. Our characters 
will be balanced by the review of all our words ; 
an average will be struck. Our idle words will 
discount the words which we have filled with no- 
bility of soul ; they will cut down our grade and 
standing before God. That is all. But that is 
bad enough. That is enough to stimulate any man 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



91 



ambitious to make the most of himself and to stand 
well with God to say, "I will eschew idle words." 
Christ does not wish to scare us to death ; but He 
does wish to point out our real danger, and to 
urge us to such excellency of speech as will edify 
society and help in the building up of self, and 
finally win for us the " well-done " and welcome 
of God. 

To these foregoing Scriptures we must add the 
text. The text is radical; it goes down to the 
roots of human life. Its brief words weigh tons. 
They strike all hypocrisy out of life. They strike 
all compromise with evil out of life. They compel 
a man to take sides in every great struggle be- 
tween right and wrong, between truth and error, 
between the wholesome and the hurtful, between 
the genuine and the false. We must give an un- 
hesitating "yea " to the cause of the good in the 
world — i.e., our allegiance to the cause of the good 
must be one of absolute loyalty and of complete 
self-surrender; and we must give an uncompro- 
mising and unchangeable "nay" to the solicitation 
of the cause of evil in the world — i.e., our opposi- 
tion to evil in all its forms must be unqualified and 
deep-seated and fearless and manifest. We must 
throw ourselves against evil for all we are worth. 
This is what it means to be a "yea-man" and a 
" nay -man" The terms "yea" and "nay" are 
the heaviest-charged words in human language. 
The spoken "yea" is the marriage of the will to 



9 2 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



the good; and the spoken "nay" is the veto- 
power of the will putting the stamp of condemna- 
tion upon the evil. They both carry character in 
them, and they are both the symbols of strength 
and of rocky ability and of granite fiber in a man's 
moral nature. When we penetrate to the lowest 
roots of our actions in life and find how our actions 
originate, we find that the seed of everything is a 
"yea " or a " nay " — i.e., the seed of every action 
is a choice or a refusal. Since this is .so, I aver 
that it is essential that in our motives and in our 
speech and in our deeds this "yea power" and this 
"nay power" which mold and shape and develop 
our lives shall be truthfully and rightly exercised. 

When our choices and our refusals are radically 
right, our speech and our character will be strong 
and beautiful with a "yea " and " nay " simplicity 
and transparency. We will not violate the canon 
of politeness ; we will not be rude or boorish, or 
gruff in conduct ; we will not be social Bohemians ; 
but we will be true and truthful, precisionists in 
speech, and haters of exaggerated ears and tongues, 
and the enemies of all sham and hypocrisy. 

In order to make the treatment of our theme 
profitable I propose to present one reason enforc- 
ing genuine life and straightforward speech upon 
the part of God's people ; and after that I propose 
to point out the only effective way of reaching 
these characteristics. 

The abounding falsities of life amid which we 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



93 



live, this is the reason why we who profess to be 
the people of God should be truthful in conduct and 
straightforward in speech. 

These abounding falsities must be rebuked ; but 
who will rebuke them if Christians do not? It is 
imperative that somebody testify that these are 
not in accord with the pure ethics of the gospel of 
Christ. But where are these abounding falsities ? 
Everywhere in human society. They are in the 
theories which men hold, and they are in the 
practices which men follow. 

The popular theory, viz., that success purchased 
at any cost is the chief good of man, is an example. 
This is the theory which weighs hosts of men. 
Robert Browning shows us the working of this 
theory in his poem called " Bishop Blougram's 
Apology." The story of the poem is this: Two 
young men, classmates, had separated upon grad- 
uation day, and had gone their respective ways. 
One had become a bishop ; the other had reached 
nothing so far as fame went, but he had succeeded 
in keeping true to his conscience. The two met 
again in after-years. The bishop invited his old 
comrade to dine with him, and over the wine after 
dinner he laid before him his philosophy of life. 
Half wise, half cynical, half sneering, he pointed 
out the fact that he had won success, fame, money, 
power, honor, distinction. His boast was : " I 
stand here on the pinnacle of fame ; but you, poor 
fellow, when you came to the point where the path 



94 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



turned to fame, allowed your conscience to inter- 
fere." In the poem Browning makes it clear that 
at the bottom of his soul the bishop is an utter 
skeptic. He does not believe in his creed, nor in 
the God he worships, nor in the heaven he has 
been trying to induce men to enter. He does not 
feel quite sure of anything except that he is bishop. 
But so long as he has the highest success he is 
willing to chance it on all other things. The great 
mass of people live their lives according to this 
philosophy. Success at any cost is their goal. 
Now, against this false philosophy it is our duty to 
lift up Christ, by being among men Christlike, and 
by putting truth and truth-speaking and truth- 
acting above immediate and near success as a goal. 
Christ's policy of life was the very opposite of the 
policy followed by Bishop Blougram. You re- 
member one occasion when He spoke the truth so 
fully and so clearly that it is recorded, " On that 
day many went back and followed Him no more." 
He might have rationally argued : " I am losing 
My hold upon the people ; better modify ; better 
cater to the multitude a little, for if I keep them I 
can influence them." But Jesus did not argue 
thus. He just kept straight on speaking the truth 
in His usual way. The result was the nation left 
Him ; the multitudes whom He fed left Him ; the 
seventy whom He commissioned left Him; even 
His own chosen twelve left Him ; He stood alone 
between heaven and earth, with a malefactor on 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



95 



one side of Him and a malefactor on the other side 
of Him, and with His life-work an utter wreck 
about His feet. But what has taken place since? 
Simply because He was honest, and stood in His 
integrity, and uttered the truth, He holds to-day 
a universal power, and is an eternal success. It 
was the lifting of Christ on the hill of Calvary that 
made Calvary the loftiest mountain on the globe. 
It costs to be true, but in the end it pays. Men 
will brand you a faddist, and a fanatic, and a 
Utopian enthusiast, and an unpractical dreamer, 
and a grand humbug; but if you are true, your 
influence for good will grow. 

If you fearlessly rebuke falsehood and vice you 
must expect to be treated as Bunyan tells us 
Faithful was treated in Vanity Fair. John Bun- 
yan was gifted with keen insight. He thus de- 
scribes the experience of Faithful : " On the 
testimony of Mr. Envy, the jury under my Lord 
Hategood unanimously brought in Faithful guilty. 
1 1 see clearly that this man is a heretic,' said Mr. 
Blindman. Then said Mr. Nogood, 'Away with 
such a fellow from the earth.' 'Ay/ said Mr. 
Malice, 'for I hate the very looks of him.' Then 
said Mr. Love-lust, ' I never could endure him.' 
' Nor I,' said Mr. Live-loose, ' for he would be 
always condemning my way.' ' Hang him, hang 
him,' cried Mr. Heady. 'A sorry scrub,' said Mr. 
Highmind. ' My heart riseth against him,' said 
Mr. Enmity. ' He is a rogue/ said Mr. Liar. 



9 6 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



' Hanging is too good for him,' said Mr. Cruelty. 
' Let us dispatch him out of the way,' said Mr. 
Hate-light. Then said Mr. Implacable, ' Might I 
have all the world given me, I could not be recon- 
ciled to him.' So they brought Faithful out, and 
scourged him, and buffeted him, and lanced his 
flesh with knives, and stoned him, and at last 
burned him to ashes at the stake." But was that 
the end of Faithful? No. You feel his power, 
and so do I. His martyrdom crowned him with 
an undying influence. Thus it is : straightforward, 
uncompromising, heroic speech and act are the 
grandest things in the universe. Let a man do 
right with such earnestness that he counts his life 
of but little value, and his example will become 
well-nigh omnipotent. 

But let me come back more closely to my point. 
I am speaking of the abounding falsities in human 
life which call for the rebuke of genuine, living, 
and straightforward speech. 

There are falsities of speech. " Evil " is called 
" good," and " good " is called "evil," notwith- 
standing God has pronounced a woe against such 
an interchange of names. Does a man show deep 
feeling in a reform or in a righteous cause, men 
stab him by calling him morbid, histrionic, hyster- 
ical, lachrymose. The great sin of speech is the 
using of misnomers in describing sin. False names 
transfigure sin and conceal its deadly essence. 
They popularize sin. The use of euphemisms in 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



97 



characterizing sin thrones sin and crowns sin. It 
is all wrong, and should be denounced. Permit 
me to give you one concrete case illustrative of this 
evil — a case in which the sin of bribery is treated 
in a jocose, euphemistic way. In a legislature of 
one of our largest Eastern States, a member arose 
and said, " Gentlemen of the legislature, a fellow- 
member yesterday came and asked me to cast my 
vote in favor of the measure we have just discussed, 
and as an inducement he offered me five hundred 
reasons in favor of casting my vote as he dictated." 
The house became at once uproarious over these 
pleasing words. But what did that senator do? 
He degraded human language. He played with 
the most deadly fire that blazes in human society. 
He painted a hideous sin with attractive colors. 
He wrapped a rainbow around a fatal bolt from the 
storm-center of hell. He took the highest word 
in our language, "reason/' that word which signi- 
fies the divinely given power of discrimination and 
choice, and degraded it into a synonym of that 
foul word "bribery." When the only words which 
we have to designate the personification of noble- 
ness, manliness, courtesy, truth, uprightness, pur- 
ity, honesty, are systematically applied to all that 
is contemptible and vile, who can doubt that these 
high qualities themselves will ultimately share in 
the debasement to which their proper names are 
subjected? Who does not see how vast a differ- 
ence it must make in our estimate of any species 



9 8 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



of wickedness, whether we are wont to designate 
it, or to hear it designated, by a word which brings 
out its hatefulness, or by a word which palliates it 
and glosses it. It is an impressive fact, noticed by 
all moralists, that indulgence in verbal vice speedily 
leads to corresponding vice in conduct. Christians, 
call things by their right names. Right wording 
leads to right thinking, and right thinking leads to 
right living. 

In speaking of the abounding falsities of life, we 
must not overlook the falsities of trade. Trade is 
a wide field demanding truth. Untruth disinte- 
grates and enfeebles the affairs of business. No 
field demands truth more, because in no field are 
there so many false ways followed and so many 
false things tolerated. Here is where you find 
trick, and fraud, and insincerity, and dishonesty, 
and untruthfulness, and adulterations, and false 
appearances, and sly duplicities. Here you find 
organized dishonesty, and structural lies, and 
wholesale robbery. Here you find everything but 
truth in the inward parts. Third-class articles bear 
first-class brands. There is an element of fraud 
running through almost everything that is offered 
for sale. The colors are bright, the surface is good, 
that people may be deceived into the belief that 
the entire article is good. Food is adulterated, 
and so is medicine. The anvil has learned to lie, 
and so has the loom. Silk, wool, cotton, hemp, 
flour, sugar, coffee, milk, are all of them liars. But 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



99 



what are the people , who make them what they 
are ? What astonishes me is this : sometimes I 
find men who stand high in the church, and who 
think they are religious and acceptable to God and 
eminently spiritual, and who talk of the indwelling 
Spirit, and who delight in sweet reveries upon 
heaven, and who go up like a sky-rocket in prayer- 
meeting and in missionary-meeting, but who, when 
scrutinized in their business life, amid the rivalries 
and the push of trade, are found to have organized 
into the very thread and fabric of their career, indi- 
rections, equivocations, smartness, and bounce, and 
an agility in turning sharp corners that always bring 
them out best in a bargain. They are hypocrites. 
I am not so sure about that. They are perfectly 
sincere in prayer-meeting, and in their aspirations 
in church, and in their preferences for the good 
things of heaven. No, they are not hypocrites. 
Their natures respond to the influences under which 
they are ; that is not hypocrisy. The difference 
between them in church and in the store is this : 
they are under different influences in the different 
places. The enunciation of gospel principles in 
church acts upon them differently from the press- 
ure of business rivalries in the store, that is all. 
What they need is to keep themselves always 
under the voice of gospel principles. They re- 
spond to these when they are under these ; their 
natures are true enough for that ; it is their duty, 
therefore, to keep themselves under these, and thus 



IOO 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



make their life in the church and in the store 
match. There is large room in business for men 
of truth; for "yea-men" and "nay-men." They 
can build business upon a permanent basis. They 
can protect it against panic. They can inspire a 
confidence which will make money and property 
safe. They can make business a school of high 
morals in wmich the finest type of character shall 
be developed. 

But I must speak now of the way of reaching 
truthfulness in life and straightforwardness of 
speech. 

i . These are reached first by great care in the 
selection and use of words. 

Do we realize the power of words? Do we 
realize what they represent? They represent us. 
Our words are as much our own as our thoughts 
are. They are the incarnation of our thoughts, 
just as our body is the incarnation of our soul. If 
you change our words, you change our thought. 
Now, if we are to represent ourselves correctly, we 
must see to it that we choose correct words. We 
can make words do whatever we wish ; we should 
wish them to do what is square and upright and 
edifying. Words are the armory of the human 
mind. I have seen in the United States arsenal 
the great cannon-balls piled up in large pyramids. 
Piled up in that way they are harmless ; but put 
them before the powder in the bore of the massive 
gun, and they become thunderbolts. Words in the 
dictionary, tiered and piled up in rows, are harm- 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



IOI 



less ; but when they receive the vitalizing touch 
of genius, they become endowed with tremendous 
energy, and leap with life. Let them be used by 
the mighty enginery of thought — i.e., by the brain 
of a Webster, or a Phillips, or a Bright, or a Glad- 
stone, — and they become irresistible arguments, 
which establish national causes and give eternal life 
to great humanitarian movements. Coming from 
the lips of a master-spirit, and instinct with his in- 
dividuality, they carry in them the power of the 
whole man. 

If I were to throw out a thought with regard to 
the character of the words which we should use, I 
should give utterance to that thought suggested 
by the text, viz., use the simplest words — words 
which are sunbeams in human speech; words of 
the "yea " and "nay " order. You cannot equivo- 
cate with such words. You have got to tell the 
truth, or else lie out and out. These are the words 
which the strongest writers use. Books which 
deal in monosyllables are immortal. The grand 
and tender passages in the English Bible are those 
which are couched almost entirely in words of one 
syllable — the twenty-third Psalm, David's lament 
over Saul and Jonathan, the Gospel according to 
John, are instances. The finest sentence ever ut- 
tered in human language is said to be that which 
refers to the creation of light: "And God said, Let 
there be light ; and there was light." But every 
word in this noted sentence is a single syllable. It 
is with words as it is with sunbeams : the more they 



102 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



are condensed the deeper they burn. I call that 
strong speech in which small words form not only 
the bolts and hinges and pins, but form also the 
chief material in the structure of verse or para- 
graph. I do not know that I can better give you 
my idea of the strength and value of small words 
than by quoting a little poem translated from the 
German and published lately in The New York 
School Journal. It is unique in its way, and worth 
its weight in gold. It runs on this wise : 

" Six little words do claim me every day, 
Shall, must, and can, with will and ought and may. 

"Shall is the law within inscribed by Heaven, 
The goal to which I by myself am driven. 

"Must is the bound not to be overpast, 
Where by the world and nature I'm held fast. 

"Can is the measure of my personal dower, 
Of deed and art, science and practiced power. 

' ' Will is my noblest crown, my brightest, best, 
Freedom's own seal upon my soul imprest. 

"Ought the inscription on the seal set fair 
On Freedom's open door, a bolt 'tis there. 

"And lastly may 'mong courses mixed, 
The vaguely possible by the moment fixed. 

"Shall, must, and can, with will and ought and may, 
These are the six that claim me every day. 

" Only when God doth teach do I know what each day 
I shall, I must, I can, I will, I ought, I may." 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



103 



I have one more point to present. It is this : 
2. Straightforward speech and genuineness of 
life must have back of them a genuine and straight- 
forward personality. 

My personality is the source of the life I live. 
My personality is the soul of what I utter. Life 
and speech only give expression to personality. 
You will never habitually speak the truth if you 
aim only to speak it; you must aim to live it. 
You must aim at being the truth. Truth must be 
the genius of your life. The habit of speaking the 
truth implies the whole cast of life. It implies a 
genuine love of truth. It means that all the facul- 
ties of man are symmetrized around truth as a 
divine center. The whole world knows that back 
of speech is personality. The man fills his own 
words. Character is the latent heat in words. 
The man behind gives words their momentum and 
projectile force. Only the words of a trip-hammer 
man are trip-hammers. Even Homer, the poet of 
the past, sets forth this fact upon which we are 
dwelling, viz., the man is back of his words. In 
his Iliad he makes a man named Thersites deliver 
a speech against Agamemnon. The speech in ink 
is magnificent. It is among the finest things in 
the Iliad. But it had no effect upon the troops. 
Its only effect was to bring down the staff of 
Ulysses upon the shoulders of the speaker. What 
was the source of weakness ? The personality of 
Thersites. Pope says that if Ulysses had made 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



that speech, the troops would have sailed for 
Greece that very night. In engineering it is a rule 
that a cannon should be at least one hundred times 
heavier than its shot. A man's character should 
be a hundred times heavier than what he says. 
Personality both originates our words and gives 
them their force. 

Our inner life molds our language, and is molded 
by it in turn. What, then, is our inner life ? In 
the exigencies of our personal and social life we 
cannot always pause to weigh our words. For 
the most part with us it is, "Stand and deliver" 
There is, then, for us no resource but to make our- 
selves whole ; to see to it that our lives are of such 
substance that, whatever we may say or do, it 
shall be dominated by and shall express the sum 
of what we are. We can trust a true personality, 
a full-orbed self, but we can trust nothing else. 
When a man has harmonized all his faculties with 
one another, when he has learned to love what God 
loves, and hate what God hates, then he is like 
some of those majestic representations of full-orbed 
human nature which Michael Angelo has given us, 
or which have come to us from the ancients. A 
friend of mine wrote from Paris, just after he had 
seen some of these masterpieces : " I stood in the 
basement of the Louvre the other day, and there 
was the Venus de Milo, and there, too, was the 
Sleeping Greek Slave in the market-place, the 
marble creation of the artist. The man was 



SPEECH AND LIFE. 



105 



majestic in quantity and quality of being. He 
had in him the possibility of power unfathomable, 
and yet he was tender as any drop of dew. A lion 
was in him, a dove also. Not only was his mas- 
siveness overpowering when you took a full view 
of it, but his tenderness was equally overpowering. 
It is easy to find a man large enough, but it is not 
easy to find a man of fine quality and of great size 
combined. The Venus, with its womanly purity 
and ideality, was as grand as the Greek Slave. I 
asked a young man, somewhat tempted by Parisian 
life, who was looking at these works of art : ' If 
these people were turned out to wander around 
the world, would they come back dissipated ? ' 
His answer was, ' They would come back without 
the smell of fire upon them.' 'How do you 
know?' He replied, ' Look at them! They are 
too great to be tempted.' ' But,' said I, ' they are 
to go round the world ; they are to be free from 
family police; they are to be subjected to all 
the temptation of modern luxury.' 'They would 
come back with not a single hair of their head 
singed.' ' How do you know? ' ' Look at them ! 
they are too great to stoop.' They had in them a 
full-orbed human nature ; and that young man, no 
philosopher, simply a person of good practical in- 
stinct, felt that nothing can make a man who has 
all the wheels moving in him act against conscience 
and reason. The whole make-up of such a man is 
against this." Yes, yes. A personality that is 



io6 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



true in every fiber of its being, full-orbed, married 
to the truth in all its instincts, loving honesty and 
hating duplicity — that is what we need, and that 
is what we must seek first and last, if we mean to 
be habitually genuine in life and straightforward 
in speech. But how are we to reach such a per- 
sonality? We can reach it only by coming into 
contact with the living Christ, and by keeping in 
contact with the living Christ. We must let Him 
mold us after His pattern. We must let Him in- 
terpret law for us. We must let Him teach us 
what is right and what is wrong. We must take 
Him who spake as man never spake, to be our 
teacher and our exemplar. We need Christ, His 
ethics, His Spirit, His personality. 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS; OR, FAITH'S SYMBOLS. 



V. 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS; OR, FAITH'S 
SYMBOLS. 

"And when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to cany 
him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived; and Israel said, It is 
enough." — Genesis 45 : 27, 28. 

We strike the story of the patriarch Jacob at 
the point of supreme inierest. His old age was a 
grand climax. It is this grand climax which we 
now strike. There is no reason why a man's old 
age should not be grand. Trust in God and faith- 
fulness in His service are open to all, and these 
make a grand old age. Gather the grand things 
which God crowds into old age as these are exhib- 
ited by the Book! Mark the light which over- 
flows and irradiates the experiences of His people 
in the evening-time of their life! Some of the 
sublimest pictures in the Bible are the pictures of 
the old age of God's heroes. They stand without 
a parallel. Look at some of these. Caleb, his 
white locks floating in the breeze as he leads the 
battle against the giants, and conquers the forces 
which forty years ago threw unbelieving Israel into 
109 



I IO 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



a disastrous panic. Joseph, at the age of one hun- 
dred and twenty, the leader of faith among his 
brethren, describing the exodus and the coming 
nationality, and in the full assurance of faith mak- 
ing request that his coffin should guide the march 
to the Promised Land. The march was as yet 
centuries in the future, but centuries were no obsta- 
cles to his faith. Simeon, feeble and tottering, yet 
present in the Temple, holding the infant Jesus in 
his arms, and in the triumph of a faith which 
had waited long, uttering his nunc dimittis, " Lord, 
now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for 
mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." John, the 
disciple of love, an old man, receiving the Apoca- 
lypse from God, and looking into the splendors of 
the New Jerusalem, and writing his grand book 
which still thrills the world. Paul, the aged, front- 
ing eternity, and reflecting in his face the glories 
of the coming Christ, and lifting his confident hand 
to receive the crown, and uttering these words in 
which there is no shadow of doubt : " I am now 
ready to be offered, and the time of my departure 
is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have 
finished my course, I have kept the faith; hence- 
forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 
ness." These are some of the Bible pictures of the 
old age of God's heroes. As pictures from human 
history they are unsurpassed and unsurpassable. 

Among these pictures we must hang the picture 
of the patriarch, Jacob. His trials of life are now 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



I I I 



over, and from this point on all is joy and peace. 
In his joy we forget his former griefs and sorrows. 
His life might be likened to one of the natural 
days through which we pass. The day opens with 
an overcast sky. Great storm-clouds blot out of 
view the rising sun. As the day deepens toward 
noon, these pour forth their tempestuous contents. 
But when the evening comes, they are rent asun- 
der and broken in pieces, in order that there may 
be a glorious sunset. They even lend their vapory 
wreaths to clothe the evening with gorgeous ap- 
parel. They transmute the bright sunlight into 
beautiful colors. In the rapture of such an even- 
ing we forget the lowering of the morning and 
the thunderstorm of midday. His life might be 
likened to a climb up the mountain. There is a 
weariness in the climb. It is a struggle to force 
one's way through the brush. Courage and vent- 
ure are tested in scaling the steeps and in making 
the narrow ledges. We reach the summit through 
exhaustion and soreness, but then there is the 
grand and sudden burst of sublime view, and the 
arduousness of the climb is completely forgotten. 
The 104th Psalm, which stirs us to praise as we 
read it in the cold type of the printed page, is be- 
fore us in life-form, hymning itself up to heaven. 
Chained by its rapture, we catch ourselves instinct- 
ively taking up its opening words and crying, 
" Bless the Lord, O my soul." " O Lord, how 
manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou 



112 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches." 
When we come into the evening of Jacob's life, 
such is the golden twilight, such the bright vision 
and outlook from the mountain of his old age, that 
we forget the past altogether in our occupancy 
with the delights of the present. 

The one story which we especially take from the 
biography of Jacob's grand old age to-day is the 
story of The Wagons, which the long-lost Joseph 
sent from Egypt to Canaan to carry his father 
from the land of famine to the land of plenty. 

Let us put the story before us. It opens with 
the aged Jacob sitting at the tent- door anxiously 
looking Egyptward. These sad words are still in 
his heart : " Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and ye 
will take Benjamin away ; all these things are 
against me." All the boys of the family are down 
in Egypt, for they have taken Benjamin away. 
The patriarch is alone. He sits at the tent-door 
awaiting the return of his sons. He is praying for 
their safety, and especially for the safety of Benja- 
min, Rachel's boy. In the dim distance he catches 
sight of a cloud of dust which rises in the air. 
This brings him at once to his feet, that he may 
peer through the distance. His heart says, " There 
are my sons, and God be praised." But it imme- 
diately asks, "Are they all there?" As he talks 
with himself, the company comes within full sight, 
so that he can discern their personal outlines. 
Then he begins to count, " One, two, three, four, 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



113 



five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine? Are there 
only nine? Ah, then, my dark foreboding has 
become a reality. Mischief has befallen Benjamin 
by the way. I should never have allowed him to 
go." These words no sooner fall from his lips than 
he sees the form of a tenth person, and his soul 
cries, " Benjamin is safe, God be doubly praised." 
Not only does a tenth man come into sight, but an 
eleventh man comes into sight. And he cries, 
" They are ALL there ! Simeon has been set free ! 
They are ALL there! Blessed be God, who hath 
not turned my prayer from Him, nor His mercy 
from me." What a heart-relief for Jacob! It is 
the sun flashing though the black cloud which he 
saw above his head, and from which he expected 
only the deadly storm. 

But wait! Jacob sees, beyond his sons, another 
cloud of dust rising in the air, and it betokens the 
approach of another company. What can that be ? 
Presently he sees, to his consternation, that it is a 
company of Egyptians riding in Egyptian chariots. 
Is it a pursuit? Does it mean that the might of 
Egypt is hurled against his little home? Is the 
return of his sons to end, not in joy, but in further 
and worse sorrow? Who can tell the anxious 
questions that filled the heart of the patriarch from 
the time he discerned the Egyptian wagons until 
his sons reached him and explained all? 

Mark the meeting between the sons and the 
father. See the troubled face of Jacob as it throws 



114 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



a whole volume of questions at his sons, even be- 
fore his lips have time to frame the one question 
of all questions, "What does this mean? Tell me 
the worst at once." Mark the faces of his sons, 
which present a striking contrast to the face of the 
inquiring father. Benjamin's is all smiles and joy. 
Reuben's is the picture of contentment and peace ; 
and the faces of the others are full of hidden things 
to be revealed. 

The first thing that gave Jacob relief was the 
happy faces of his returning sons. His sons were 
different men from what they were when they 
returned from Egypt the first time. Scarce had 
he gotten relief from a look into their happy faces, 
when he was subjected to a shock of joy, as his 
sons simultaneously told him the whole story of 
their glad faces in this one sentence : " Joseph is 
yet alive, and is governor over all the land of 
Egypt." Do you want a picture of sudden sur- 
prise? You have it here. Do you want to see a 
human heart leap from fear and grief into happy 
assurance and joy? You can see it here. Do you 
want to see how the soul can paint for itself a dark 
present and a black future, while the real facts 
warrant a picture as bright as the sun ? You can 
see that here. The absence of Joseph and Simeon 
and Benjamin, which was so lamented by Jacob, 
was working out a magnificent destiny for the 
household of Jacob. We can believe the narrative 
when it tells us that the sudden declaration of the 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



115 



sons of Jacob caused their father's heart to faint, 
for he believed them not. "Joseph is yet alive!" 
The very joy wrapped up in the assertion is so 
great that it hinders faith. " Governor over all the 
land of Egypt." Methinks I hear Jacob talk with 
himself and say, " If he were alive, by what means 
could my shepherd boy rise to the highest seat of 
government in that great land? Ah, these, my 
sons, are too cruel in their treatment of me. They 
have entered into another wicked plot. If Joseph 
were alive, he would be here himself." It was 
natural for Jacob to be incredulous at first, and to 
hold on to his incredulity until he received some 
evidence from Joseph himself. Remember what 
he had to argue down before he could believe. 
He felt that he had irresistible presumptive evi- 
dence that Joseph had been torn to pieces by wild 
beasts. He had to argue that down. He had 
in his possession the blood-stained coat, and he 
brought it out and held it up before his sons. He 
had to contradict the coat and charge it with black 
falsehood. He had to turn back the whole tide 
and current of his feelings from that dismal day 
when he accepted the account of Joseph's death 
as a fact. He had to give up the rest of acquies- 
cence for the restlessness of a revived hope. He 
had to unsettle everything. 

The incredulity of Jacob did not strike his 
sons as strange. They accepted it as a matter of 
course, and began to persuade him. They told 



Il6 OUR BEST MOODS. 

him all that they had seen, and all that Joseph had 
said. They gave him every confirming detail. 
They pointed to the changes of the costly raiment, 
and the full provision, and to the many rich gifts. 
They made these material things talk and bear 
testimony. They took him out to look at the 
wagons with their Egyptian drivers, and told him 
their purpose, and read to him the invitation of 
Joseph embodied in them. That was a master- 
stroke ; for when he saw the wagons his heart 
revived, his doubts vanished, and his faith leaped 
into full growth. The wagons were symbols to his 
faith, and spake to him as nothing else could speak. 
When he heard the story which the wagons told, 
he believed all that his sons declared. 

But why should these sons be believed because 
of the wagons? Jacob once believed them when 
they made Joseph's coat speak ; what assurance 
was there that they had put the voice of truth into 
the wagons ? There was a vast difference between 
the coat and the wagons. They could control the 
coat, but they could not control the wagons. 
These belonged to royalty, and only some one in 
the royal palace, some one connected with the 
throne of Egypt, could send them. But who in 
all the world, outside of these eleven sons, would 
have enough interest in this lame old shepherd to 
send for him, and to bestow such royal gifts upon 
him, except one, and that one Joseph? Joseph's 
love was in the wagons, and the wagons as his 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



Ill 



chosen symbols of communication with Jacob spake 
to the father's heart. Their message brought a 
glow of joy into his faded cheek, and infused a 
new elasticity into every limb, and breathed vigor 
and vitality into all his powers. Old and weary 
as he was, he at once determined to go and see his 
son. His new faith gave him a new life. By 
using the wagons he saw Joseph wearing the 
crown of an unsullied manhood as well as the ring 
of royal favor, and the gray hairs which he said 
would be brought with sorrow to the grave fell in 
joy upon the neck of the one for whom he had 
mourned until grief had whitened them. 

As we look at the effect which the glad mes- 
sage, "Joseph is yet alive," had upon Jacob, we 
see the wisdom of Joseph in the way he dealt with 
his father. One would naturally say, " Now that 
Joseph knows everything, why not go himself, and 
see his father, and bring him to Egypt?" 

If the simple words, " Joseph is yet alive," 
caused such a shock, and set the tide of life rolling 
backward upon his heart until he swooned, what 
think ye would have been the shock had Joseph 
stepped unexpectedly into his father's presence ? 
Do you not know that joy has the power to kill, 
just as grief has? The daily press a few years ago 
told this story : A young man left his fatherland 
and sailed from Germany to America. He left 
behind him the betrothed of his heart, with the 
promise that he would send for her as soon as his 



n8 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



gains warranted. Manfully he wrought his way 
up the hill of fortune, and faithfully he kept his 
promise. His affianced landed safely in New 
York, and sent a telegram to Chicago announcing 
the time the train which bore her was due. The 
engine came thundering into the Union Station, 
and the two met, and spake each other's name, 
" Frederick," " Catherine." It was a lover's meet- 
ing, full of romance from real life. It was a 
moment of grateful joy. The greeting given, the 
affianced husband gently sought to disengage him- 
self from the clasped hands which were around his 
broad and manly shoulders. But as he did so, he 
found his betrothed, in his arms, dead. She died 
from very joy. The method which Joseph adopted 
was such as would prevent the shock of joy being 
too great. The glad tidings were gradually given, 
and the meeting of great joy was gradually brought 
about. 

As we read how the wagons of Joseph wrought 
conviction in Jacob, and gave him strong, active, 
vigorous faith, we see the value of those things 
which may be called outward evidences. We see 
the value of faith's symbols. The wagons were 
outward evidences; they were a separate and dis- 
tinct testimony to the reality of what the sons 
of Jacob declared. They confirmed the words of 
these sons. They were outside arguments proving 
the things which the sons asked their father to 
believe. Has God given us outside arguments, 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



119 



outside evidences? Yes, we have outside evi- 
dences to Christianity and to the doctrines of the 
gospel which we are asked to' believe. Let us 
value these. Do you ask me to illustrate ? I will 
try. 

For example, we are asked to believe in the 
exercise of God's fatherly care over us. Well, we 
accept of this doctrine because of what God is in 
Himself, and because of what He has. He is the 
author of fatherhood, therefore He has a father's 
heart. While we accept of this doctrine of God's 
fatherly care over us because of what God is and 
has, is there not an external argument proving His 
care over us — an argument which all can see? 
There is. He sends wagons to us and gives us 
gifts. The sun rolling in its orbit is His wagon, 
and out from this wagon there is tossed upon earth 
golden grain for bread, brilliant flowers for beauty, 
and all manner of luscious fruit for luxury. God's 
chariot of fire, which rides the sky, is laden with 
gifts for all men, and these gifts which keep the 
earth from famine ought to speak to the human 
race of His love, just as Joseph's laden wagons 
spake to Jacob. Living in the midst of these gifts, 
we ought to be able to believe in the fatherhood 
of God ; and believing the fatherhood of God in 
the midst of these gifts, we ought not to be able 
to doubt His fatherhood while in the midst of other 
things. 

For example, we are asked to believe in the 



120 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Christian religion. We accept the Christian relig- 
ion because of what it is in itself. It is full of 
purity and love and heavenlikeness. While we 
accept of it for what it is in itself, still, are there 
not external evidences ? Yes. I find external 
evidences. The Christian Church is an external 
evidence, bearing testimony to Christianity. So 
is the Lord's day, and so is the Lord's Supper. 
Here are institutions before our eyes; they are 
undeniable things, and they challenge an explana- 
tion. Whence came they ? Where did they orig- 
inate? What do they mean? What is their 
purpose? To what do they testify? Answer 
these questions truthfully ; explain these institu- 
tions as you explain other institutions, and you 
will receive from them the confirmation of the 
Christian religion. They bear the same testimony 
to the Christian religion that the Day of Independ- 
ence bears to the American Republic; and they 
are just as worthy of credence. They all center 
in Christ, and proclaim the gospel of Christ. They 
are the three great external evidences of our relig- 
ion. They are God's wagons bringing men the 
blessings of sweet rest, holy service, divine fellow- 
ship, transforming communion, ennobling scenes, 
and heart- melting memorials. As wagons freighted 
with rich spiritual gifts, they are auxiliaries to 
faith, arguing with corroborating and convincing 
power to all who will listen to them. 

Let us, during this sacramental hour, confine 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



121 



our thoughts altogether to one of these great aux- 
iliaries of faith. Let us speak solely of the Lord's 
Supper. As we do so, let us make the wagons of 
Joseph suggest the thoughts that should be upper- 
most in our souls during this holy convocation. 
In the sacramental plate and cup of the Lord's 
Supper our faith has that which Jacob's faith had 
in the wagons from Egypt. Joseph's wagons were 
symbols to Jacob's faith ; the bread and the wine 
in the gospel feast are symbols to our faith. They 
are God's sacramental wagons that have come roll- 
ing down the centuries, bearing precious gifts and 
precious messages from God to us. 

Let us learn from Joseph's wagons how to inter- 
pret God's wagons, that our faith may be strength- 
ened and our spirits revived. It is the renewal 
and edification of our faith which we seek in God's 
house and in the banqueting-chamber of His love. 
The cry of our soul is, " Lord, we believe ; help 
Thou our unbelief." 

There is a twofold way of looking at faith's 
symbols : they can be looked at as the voice of 
God speaking to the soul of man, or they can be 
looked at as the voice of the soul speaking to God. 
We propose at this time to look at them solely as 
the voice of God. 

I feel impelled to say, at this point, that if we 
are to be benefited to-day by the symbolism of the 
Lord's Supper, we must recognize the bread and 
the wine as symbols : they are not common bread 



122 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



and wine. They are sacramental bread and wine. 
Let us grasp this fact, and then let us read them 
as Jacob read the wagons from Egypt. The 
wagons were nothing in themselves ; it was their 
association that gave them power. It is the asso- 
ciation of the bread and wine with Christ that 
gives them power as auxiliaries of faith. We must 
remember this, else the sacramental plate and cup 
will be empty wagons to our souls. Let us not 
treat the Lord's Supper of the New Testament as 
some treat the symbolic altar of sacrifice of the 
Old Testament. The gospel of the coming Christ 
is fully written in the Old Testament altar, but 
they deface the writing and make the altar a spir- 
itual blank. They make an empty enigma of it, 
and rob themselves of the testimony of the past. 
They hold it up to the contempt of an unbelieving 
world. One of the aged Simeons of the Christian 
Church writes these grand words with reference 
to the Old Testament symbolism : "A German 
astronomer, not long ago, called my attention to 
the magnificent distances and the sublime evolu- 
tions of the heavenly bodies. Said he, ' Up there 
in the December skies I can see something that 
seems to me worthy of an Almighty God. But 
when I come back from the stars to your Old 
Testament story about fire coming down from the 
sky to burn up the fragments of a slaughtered 
lamb, it seems very petty in contrast. I cannot 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



123 



help asking myself, What can the God of the side- 
real universe have to do with that ? ' True ; it is 
very petty till we discover in the bleeding lamb 
upon the altars of Judea the symbol of the Lamb 
of God that was slain from the foundation of the 
world. It is beneath the notice of the God of the 
stars, until we discern in the blood of the sacrifice 
a type of the blood which was foreordained for 
the remission of sin before one star glistened in 
the diadem of night. Take Christ out of the Old 
Testament, and the student of astronomy may well 
scorn and scout the whole story. But put Christ 
back again, and the pages of the Old Testament 
glow with a magnificence which the Heaven of 
heavens cannot contain." 

To convert material things into symbols and 
memorials of great historical facts and of eternal 
spiritual verities is to give material things a glori- 
ous transfiguration. It is like turning the block 
of marble into a statue through which genius 
speaks. Build the rough bowlders from the Jor- 
dan-bed into a monumental pillar, and you make 
each stone an historical voice proclaiming the won- 
ders of God. Make the bread and wine symbols 
of the broken body and shed blood of the Christ 
who died on Calvary, and you make the common 
things of life proclaim the foundation fact of the 
glorious gospel — this fact, viz., " Christ crucified is 
the power of God and the wisdom of God to all 



124 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



who believe." You turn also a common feast into 
a banquet with God, and you bring to earth the 
fellowship of heaven. 

The sacramental plate and cup, like Joseph's 
wagons, are symbols of faith. That is our point 
now. They speak to us as the wagons spake to 
Jacob. 

i. The wagons declare to Jacob that there is 
somebody in Egypt who knows him and is thinking 
of him. The sacramental cup and plate declare to 
us that there is somebody in heaven who knozvs us 
and is thinking of us. 

The wagons were expressly for Jacob. Joseph 
could not have spoken more distinctly or recogniz- 
ably to Jacob if he had spoken to him through the 
telephone of the nineteenth century. The wagons 
annihilated distance. In them Joseph thought 
aloud and audibly, and his father heard his 
thoughts. As he listened to the story of the wag- 
ons his heart said to him, " I am known in Egypt ; 
there is one exalted mind there who is thinking of 
me. He individualizes me." 

Are not these the very thoughts which com- 
municants have as they receive the sacramental 
elements? "This is My body broken for you!" 
What are these words but a personal address — the 
individualizing of each disciple upon the part of 
the Master of the Feast? What are these words 
but the recognition of the personality of each ? It 
is the voice of a greater than Joseph calling us by 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



125 



name and saying, "Jacob," "John," "Mary," 
" Elizabeth, the blessings of redemption are for 
you." Our names, written on precious gems, are 
on the breastplate and shoulders of our great 
High-Priest before the throne of God. Christ 
knows the name of Ananias, with whom Paul 
lodges, and the city in which Ananias lives, and 
the street upon which Ananias lives, and the house 
in which Ananias lives. Child of God, whoever 
you are, you are known in heaven, and in the sac- 
rament of the Church God sends you a personal 
address, a personal assurance of pardon, and a per- 
sonal Christ. 

2. The wagons declare to Jacob that there is 
somebody in Egypt who is planning for his comfort 
and making rich provision for him. The sacra- 
mental cup and plate declare to us that there is 
somebody in heaven planning for our comfort and 
making a rich provision for us. 

Joseph's wagons and gifts were only earnests of 
the future, and as such they gave Jacob satisfac- 
tion and confidence. The wagons were prophecies 
and promises. Because of them Jacob knew that 
Goshen, the choicest valley in Egypt, was sure. 

Is not the Lord's Supper an earnest to us? It 
is a witness of the love which Christ had for us, 
and which led Him to the cross on our behalf. 
But is it not an earnest, a picture, of that marriage 
supper of the Lamb of which it is written, " Blessed 
are they who are bidden to the marriage supper 



126 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



of the Lamb"? To the man of discerning faith, 
the Lord's Supper is nothing short of the com- 
munion in heaven in the form of a prophecy. Our 
desires for greater fullness and greater degrees of 
divine fellowship are pledges and prophecies of 
coming satisfaction, just as the eye is the pledge 
and prophecy of the needed light and of the world 
of beauty ; just as one joint in the physical man is 
a prophecy of another and complementary joint. 
God makes no half-joints. Here we have fore- 
tastes of that which is beyond, and, like the Eshcol 
clusters, these foretastes speak to us of the full 
vintage in the Promised Land. It is said that voy- 
agers to beautiful isles in warmer climes scent the 
aroma of their flowers while they are twenty and 
thirty miles off at sea. Even so, it seems that God 
permits His people, while afar off from heaven, to 
have large foretastes of the glory to be revealed, 
as their faith sails the sea of life in the ship of 
Church ordinances, whose prow is headed toward 
the port of Jerusalem above. 

Overlook not the provision which God has made 
for His people. He has wagons for every spiritual 
Jacob. No Jacob need go through life footsore 
and weary. Every Jacob who walks and plods 
until he is exhausted does so because he persist- 
ently refuses to ride. The wagons of God are 
running along every highway over which God calls 
us to travel. These are the golden- wheeled char- 
iots of the promises. They run hither and thither 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



127 



all through human life. Does God call you to run 
along the pathway of orphanage? There is a 
golden- wheeled chariot running that way, " I will 
be a father unto the fatherless." Does God call 
you to run along the way of widowhood? There 
is a golden-wheeled chariot running that way, " I 
will be the husband of the widow." Does God 
call you to travel the via dolorosa ? There is a 
golden-wheeled chariot running that way, " I will 
be with you in six troubles, and in seven troubles 
I will deliver thee." Does your faith require you 
to run back to the beginnings of Christianity, that 
you may assure yourselves of the first principles? 
There is a chariot which turns straight back to 
these first-needed things — it is the Lord's Supper. 
Use this chariot. The wagons of God run all 
through human life. More than this, the wagons 
of God constantly run between earth and heaven. 
The promises are the wagons that run through 
human life, on every line of experience; and the 
ordinances of the Church, the songs of the soul, 
and the earnest, believing prayers of the heart are 
the wagons that run between heaven and earth. 

3. The wagons declare to Jacob that there is 
somebody in Egypt who loves him and who cannot 
be satisfied without his presence. The sacramental 
plate and cup declare to us that there is some one in 
heaven who loves us, and who cannot be satisfied 
without our presence. 

Joseph had the palace, and the run of the king- 



128 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



dom, and a home of his own; but there was a 
place in his life which only his father could fill. 
It is true that his father was a poor man, but the 
nobility in the soul of Joseph scorned the idea of 
making any difference in the treatment of his father 
on account of that. There are degenerated sons 
in the nineteenth century who look upon their poor 
parents as in the way ; who are inordinately re- 
signed to Providence when they die, and who 
carry their principles of economy so far as to econ- 
omize on their coffins ; but Joseph's soul was not 
built out of such spiritual rubbish. With him it 
was not " Over the Hills to the Poorhouse," but 
it was " Over the Hills to the Palace." His loving 
heart must have Jacob in Egypt ; and with Jacob 
in Egypt, Egypt becomes a new land to him. It 
was a grand day when the wagons brought the old 
patriarch to Egypt, and when the long-separated 
ones met, pronounced each other's name, looked 
each other in the face, and settled down for a long 
life of communion. Ere Jacob started to Egypt 
the wagons told him of all these joys. 

What do the sacramental elements tell us ? Do 
they not speak of the love and longing of God, in 
Jesus Christ, as these go out toward His people? 
The Christ who could not go to the Transfiguration 
Mount alone ; the Christ who could not go to 
Gethsemane without taking with Him His chosen 
disciples ; even this same Christ cannot do without 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



129 



human company in heaven. Did He not pray to 
His Father in the intercessory prayer, " I will that 
they whom Thou hast given may be with Me 
where I am, that they may behold My glory"? 
He cannot even wait for us to reach heaven; so 
He sends us the wagon of His covenant in the form 
of the Great Supper, that our thoughts and faith 
and love may ascend to Him now, and may be 
His now. It is a great thought, and it is full of 
comfort. The heavenly glory of Christ will not 
be perfect, and the heavenly joy of Christ will 
not be full, and the heavenly love of Christ will 
not be satisfied, and the heavenly company of 
Christ will not be complete until the last of His 
redeemed ones is safely gathered on high. Every 
wagon in, and every saved soul brought home — 
that is necessary for the perfection of heaven, 
and for the satisfaction of God's infinite love. 
The family of God, all together with God, in the 
mansion of God — that is the reality of which this 
sacramental feast is the type and picture. 

" One family, we dwell in Him, 
One Church above, beneath, 
Though now divided by the stream, 
The narrow stream of death. 

" One army of the living God, 
To His command we bow ; 
Part of the host have crossed the flood, 
And part are crossing now." 



130 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Brethren, we are in a holy presence to-day. 
We are face to face with holy things. Our faith 
ought to be vitalized, deepened, and broadened 
through the communicated life of our Christ, 
which He sends us through faith's symbols. God's 
spiritual wagons are here, laden with spiritual 
gifts. They are weighted down with holy mes- 
sages, with a radiant gospel, with a pictorial cross, 
with promises that are all gold, with portions from 
the King's heavenly table. What is more than all, 
they bring the King Himself. Now that He has 
come, He will preside at our feast, give us a wel- 
come, and strengthen us every one for life. We 
know not what is before us, but He knows, and 
He will impart to us according to that knowledge. 
To-day we shall receive from Him according to 
our faith and our desire and our spiritual relish. 

May the Lord grant that our spirits may be re- 
vived, and that our hearts may be filled with new 
impulses and new enterprises. May we go from 
this communion Sabbath as Moses went from the 
cleft of the rock where God hid him, with the vis- 
ion of God burning in our souls, and with an abid- 
ing sense of God's presence. May we go from it 
as Elijah went from Horeb, carrying with us a 
fresh faith, and an inward feeling of our sufficiency 
in God. May we go from it as John went from 
Patmos, with our minds filled with pictures of the 
future, and of the glories which God has pro- 
vided for His Church and His people, and, like 



JOSEPH'S WAGONS. 



131 



John, may we ever be able to keep these glowing 
before the eyes of the universe. May we be so 
filled to-day with God's own Spirit that we shall 
be able to use the words of Jacob and say, "It is 
enough." "It is enough." 



VI. 

" THE INDIGNATION OF A FINE SOUL/' 



VI. 



"THE INDIGNATION OF A FINE SOUL." 

"And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid 
tip for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.''' 1 — 
Luke 12 : 19. 

The parable which gives us our text was called 
out by an interruption. It is not one of the log- 
ical links in Christ's sermon ; it is an interpolation. 
Jesus was discoursing upon the trials of life, and 
upon the providences which overrule them ; upon 
the persecutions of the righteous, and upon the 
indwelling of the Holy Spirit which sustains the 
righteous in the midst of persecutions. Just when 
He reached this solemn part of His sermon one of 
His hearers, who was thinking of gold and lands 
and material possessions, broke in upon Him with 
a matter wholly irrelevant : " Master, bid my 
brother divide my father's estate with me." So 
incongruous, so foreign, so sudden was the inter- 
ruption that the sermon was literally shattered. 
You are shocked at the frivolity and carnality of 
the man. You are sorry for the broken sermon. 
But why be shocked ? Why be sorry ? Hundreds 
i35 



136 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



of modern sermons would be shattered if modern 
hearers acted themselves out as this man acted 
himself out. If by a spiritual photography the 
thoughts of our congregations could be brought 
out as plainly as the features of our auditors, it 
would be found that men's brains in the pews were 
often teeming with incongruous thoughts. 

We people of the nineteenth century are not so 
intensely sabbatic that we can pose as critics of the 
secularity of the people of the first century. The 
man who interrupted Jesus is duplicated in Brook- 
lyn. Last Sabbath Mr. A met Mr. B, and because 
it was Sabbath he began his conversation by in- 
quiring for the state of his soul. When Mr. B had 
answered solemnly and religiously, then both men 
forgot all about their souls and glided with per- 
fect ease into a discussion of the late election and 
its probable influence upon business. They had 
election on the brain, precisely as this man had his 
father's will on the brain. Human nature is human 
nature. 

While Christ's sermon was broken in twain, yet 
the occasion was not lost. The Master used the 
interruption as an opportunity for speaking this 
noted parable, which exposes the fatal folly of 
allowing material things to have the supreme place 
in human life. We owe some of the finest par- 
ables of our Lord to the narrowness and the folly 
and the sins of men. The bigotry of the Pharisees 
called out the parables of " The Lost Piece of 



" THE INDIGNA TION OF A FINE SOUL. » 137 



Money," " The Lost Sheep," and " The Lost Son." 
And here the grasping character of this unnamed 
man calls out the parable of the rich fool. 

We do not like the man of the parable, as we 
see him rub his fat hands, and hear him chuckle 
with delight over his harvests, and dialogue with 
himself complacently, and make the plans of a 
practical atheist. We do not like the man. But 
let us not hold up our hands in mock horror as 
though the man of the parable were a caricature 
upon our nature, for he is not. Christ was not 
guilty of making a coarse daub when He painted 
this man. The man of the parable is a character 
true to life. Instead of giving way to mock hor- 
ror, let us give ourselves to prayer that God may 
save us from translating the parable into history. 
Better be anything in the world than this rich fool. 
I do not wonder at the burning words of one of 
England's greatest preachers, in speaking to his 
congregation upon this parable, in which he con- 
gratulates the believing poor man in his audience 
who has a rich faith in God. His words are these : 
''Do I speak to any poor person here? My 
brother, listen. When that cold east wind flutters 
your rags, when it bites you to the very marrow, 
thank God for your coldness, and for your empti- 
ness, for these things have saved you from the 
black atheism of this rich fool. Poverty is a bitter 
thing on a cold winter day ; but poverty with sal- 
vation is infinitely better than houses and barns 



138 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



filled to bursting and a palace crowded with every 
possible luxury without salvation." The words of 
the minister which I have quoted are hot, but they 
are not too hot. They scintillate with truth, but 
not with exaggeration. 

The words of the parable at which we anchor 
our thoughts are the words which the man ad- 
dresses to his soul after he has built his new barns 
and stowed away his harvests, and after he has 
walked in pride amid his abundance and super- 
abundance : " Soul, thou hast much goods laid up 
for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and 
be merry." This is what the man says to the soul. 
The question with me is, What did the soul say to 
the man ? The soul has its own thoughts. The soul 
has its own rights. The soul has its own ideals. 
I am interested in the soul's reception of the prop- 
osition. How did it feel and act? How ought it 
to feel and act? My fellow-man, how would you 
feel and act? If the soul was in touch with God, 
a fine sou/, a soul conscious of its own wonderful 
possibilities, of its own nature, of its own needs, 
and of its own immortality, it received the man's 
proposition with upright and downright indigna- 
tion. The proposition created an earthquake in 
the world called man. The true soul's indignation 
can be judged by God's indignation. God's indig- 
nation is expressed in the title which He gives the 
man of the parable, "Thou fool." A true soul is 
of kin with God, and feels as God feels, and talks 



' ' THE INDIGNA TION OF A FINE SOUL:' 139 

as God talks, and uses the names which God uses 
in denominating things and persons. 

Taking for granted that this soul was a fine soul, 
let us draw near and listen while the man of the 
parable makes his proposition, and while the soul 
responds. The conversation between them cannot 
be otherwise than educational. 

The man addresses the soul : Soul, I have pur- 
chased a magnificent farm, and I have been a dili- 
gent farmer. I have paid every dollar of indebt- 
edness. I own it out and out. I have fully 
stocked it. On it are horses and kine and flocks, 
all well conditioned. I have enlarged everything 
on a grand scale. The barns are new, and the 
storehouses are ample. I have plowed and sowed 
and reaped, and the harvest is rich and superb. 
A hundredfold all around has been the increase, 
and the granaries contain substance for years and 
years. I am proud of myself, I am proud of my 
goods, I am proud of my houses, I am proud of 
my farm. Now, as I am wedded to thee, I bring 
all to thee ; join me in a life of wholesale indul- 
gence, and freedom from care : " Soul, take thine 
ease; eat, drink, and be merry." 

What does the soul respond? That is the 
question. 

The soul responds : O man, thou meanest well, 
but thou art ignorant, thou art selfish, thou art 
debased and lustful, thou art sinful, thou art a fool. 
The more I think of thy proposition the more I 



I AO OUR BEST MOODS. 

feel the flush of shame, the more humiliated I am, 
and the more does downright indignation burn 
within me. I protest against thy proposal with 
every faculty of my being. There is an insult in 
thy words, the insult of underestimation and non- 
appreciation. I am infinitely above barns and 
storehouses and things. A soul would deteriorate 
if it were doomed to do nothing but watch the 
body and munch corn, or gorge itself with luxuries 
and fill itself with wines. Away with the life pro- 
posed ; it is an abomination unto me. If I were 
to accept of it I should soon find myself wedded 
to a man blotched and bloated and dehumanized 
and brutalized, with low sensuality looking out of 
every feature of his face and form. Thou art an 
embyro glutton and wine-bibber. 

But note you, I do not decry the animal in man, 
for, to begin with, man is an animal. Whether we 
take the old idea of outright creation, or the sci- 
entific doctrine of evolution — man is an animal. 
Whether he was created outright in a second, or 
whether he is the out-blossoming of the topmost 
twig of the tree of life which is millions of years 
old — man is an animal. He is, however, at the 
top of the animal world. The lowest type of the 
animal crawls horizontally on the ground, or swims 
horizontally in the waters — man moves on a per- 
pendicular. To say nothing of the development 
of the nervous system, which becomes more com- 
plex, to say nothing of the development of the 



11 THE INDIGNATION OF A FINE SOUL." 14 1 

brain — there is a gradual lifting of the very phys- 
ical form itself, up through reptile, bird, mammal, 
until at last man stands, in contradistinction to the 
lower forms of life, perpendicular, with his feet 
upon the earth and his head pointing to the far-off 
heavens. Add to this perpendicularity the growth 
and the development and the perfection of brain 
which is in man, and man leaves all other animals 
hopelessly behind. I admit that man is an animal. 
I admit that the animal in man should be provided 
for; it should be well fed and well housed and 
well clad. I go away beyond this, and this is the 
point I am pressing : I hold that the animal in man 
should be fed, clad, and housed for the express 
purpose of sustaining and keeping in health that 
which is highest in man, the intellectual, the moral, 
the spiritual. My quarrel with you, O man, is 
this : your position stops with the animal in man. 
You ignore the immortal in man. If a man's idea 
of what his soul wants is merely to find the soft 
side of the world and enjoy it, it is no wonder that 
he should doubt, as many such men do, whether 
such a soul can be immortal; for he treats it as 
no higher than the soul of a dog, whose heaven is 
a soft rug in front of a warm fire. Your sin is 
that you end where you eud. A farm well tilled, 
a barn well filled, a table well spread — there is 
nothing sinful in desiring these. Desire for such 
things is the nurse of industry and thrift. But 
your sin is in your desire ending there, wholly 



142 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



unbalanced by those higher desires which man as 
a son of God should cherish. 

You are a fool because you take less than a 
man's part. You lay up treasure for yourself, but 
you lay up no treasure in yourself. Nobility, or 
rather ability, is your obligation. Your possibili- 
ties are and should be your necessities. We ex- 
pect everything to act according to its nature. 
We expect the lark to soar and sing. We expect 
the watch-dog to be faithful according to its breed. 
Now we should deal with self on no lower stand- 
ard. What does this standard mean for us? It 
means that we shall climb up into the ethical and 
the aesthetical and the intellectual and the spirit- 
ual and the worshipful. It means deep and ear- 
nest thought and reverence and aspiration. It 
means the possession of the truth. It means the 
love of all that is high and fair and pure and sweet 
and godlike. It means the consecration of our- 
selves to noble manhood and holy womanhood. 
It means that we shall feed on that on which God 
feeds. Propose that, O man, and I will lock hands 
with you upon the instant. 

I have this also against thy proposition, O man 
— there is no God in it. From beginning to end 
it is atheistic. I have heard thee talk, and the 
leading word in thy talk has been the word 
"ray." "My lands." "My barns." "My goods." 
"My corn." " My soul." No God. No homage. 
No worship. No gratitude. It is all " me and 



"THE INDIGNATION OF A FINE SOUL." 143 

mine." Thou infinite liar! thou ownest nothing. 
Thou unjust steward, thou dost dishonestly appro- 
priate what belongs to another. God, whom thou 
willfully dost exclude, owns everything. The corn 
is His : it grew on His earth, was watered by His 
rain and ripened by His sun. The barns are His : 
His forests grew the timber out of which they have 
been built. Thou dost not even own thy life ; it 
was given thee of God, to be returned to Him by 
and by beautified and transfigured by holy deeds. 
I belong to God, yet by excluding Him thou pro- 
posest to me that I shall prove traitor to my God. 
No, never! It is He who makes me what I am. 
It is God in my life that makes my life glorious. 

My life is an insipid, a dull, an unattractive 
thing until God comes into it. It is like a figured" 
window, which is only bits of colored glass till the 
sunshine gleams behind it. But how magnificent 
is the window when thus lighted ; it flashes into 
purple and gold, and breaks forth into the splendors 
of precious stones. Life is beautiful when lighted 
with the love and the purposes and glory of God. 
You propose no God, and no Christ ; but God and 
Christ are my chief and constant need. You offer 
me only "goods." I need pardon; I need re- 
demption ; I need purification ; I need preparation 
for the day of judgment. Of what service would 
"goods" be to me before the great white throne? 
Thou wouldst send me out into eternity absolutely 
unprepared and helpless. Away from me, 0 fiend 



144 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



of hell, and emissary of the devil ! I mean to be 
saved. I mean to be on God's winning side here 
on earth, and I mean to reign with God on His 
throne in heaven. I can get along grandly with- 
out thy " goods," but I cannot get along at all 
without God. O God, come Thou and enter into 
my life, and fill every faculty of my being ; for I 
open the door of every faculty to Thee. There is 
an inspiration that comes only from Thee, and that 
thrills the soul, and that lifts one up to the con- 
sciousness that one is the child of God : grant me 
that inspiration, that I may live by it. 

Thou proposest no God, yet no man has been 
more dependent upon God than thou hast been, 
or has so come into direct contact with God. 
" The sons of Tubal Cain, the artificers in brass 
and iron — there might be some excuse for these 
not knowing God, there are so many second 
causes coming between them and the First Great 
Cause. The mason never saw the quarry whence 
were hewn the granite blocks with which he builds. 
The carpenter never stood under the oak or the 
pine and felt the presence of God there. He 
works upon the timber without studying that 
miracle of nature, a tree. But you are different. 
You have never been absorbed by the roar of the 
blast-furnace, nor by the din of whirring factory 
wheels. God has run the great engine and factory 
of nature for you. You have received His rain 
and sunshine directly from heaven. You have 



4 ' THE INDIGNA TION OF A FINE SOUL." 145 

been compelled to wait for Him, and you have 
seen Him day by day do what you could not do. 
He has actually worked His miracles before your 
eyes to bless you with crops and abundance." 
For you to be an atheist, and for you to propose 
atheism to me, is nothing short of monstrous in- 
iquity. 

Added to the sin of having no Fatherhood of 
God your proposition is guilty of having in it no 
brotherhood of man. It embraces no schemes of 
philanthropy. Having no God in heaven, you 
have no brother on earth. You say, 44 There is 
no room for my goods." There is plenty of room. 
There is room in the homes of the destitute and 
in the mouths of the hungry. These are God's 
granaries, and he who is in partnership with God 
and who recognizes God's claims will store largely 
in these. Turn your crops into gold, and your 
gold into asylums, and into orphan homes, and 
into institutions of learning, and into missionary 
stations, and into those needed redemptive agen- 
cies for which the world is crying. 

I have another objection to your proposition, 
O man. It is this: it would house me with the 
corruptible and fading, and thus expose me also 
to corruption. Dwelling with the carnal, I too 
should become carnal. The Saviour said : 44 Lay 
not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where 
moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves 
break through and steal ; but lay up for yourselves 



146 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



treasures in heaven, where thieves do not break 
through nor steal ; for where your treasure is there 
will your heart be also." Now notice the reason 
by which He enforces His command. A noted 
thinker puts it this way : " Why not lay up treas- 
ures upon earth? Because there the moth and 
rust and thief come. And so we should lose those 
treasures. Yes ; by the moth and the rust and 
the thief. Does our Lord, then, mean that the 
reason for not laying up treasures is their transitory 
and corruptible nature? No; He adds a ' for ' : 
1 for where your treasure is there will your heart 
be also.' Of course the heart will be where the 
treasure is, but' what has that to do with the argu- 
ment ? This : what is with the treasure must fare 
as the treasure fares. The heart that haunts the 
treasure-house where the moth and the rust doth 
corrupt will be exposed to the same ravages as the 
treasure — will itself be rusted and moth-eaten. 
Ah, here is the hurt; the immortal, the soul cre- 
ated in the image of the everlasting God, is housed 
with the fading and the corrupting, and clings to 
them as its good, clings to them till it is infected, 
penetrated, and interpenetrated with their disease 
and foulness ; creeps with them into a burrow 
in the earth, where its budded wings wither and 
damp and drop away from its shoulders, instead 
of haunting the open plains and the highest table- 
lands, spreading abroad its young pinions to the 
sun and the air, and strengthening them in further 



' ' THE INDIGNA TION OF A FINE SOUL:' 147 

and further flights, till at last they become strong 
enough to bear the God-born into the presence of 
its Father in heaven." Ah, therein lies the hurt, 
and this is the hurt which your proposition would 
bring into my experience. I deserve something 
better. I reject thy proposition in to to. 

I take thy proposition, O man, to the Book of 
God, and when I weigh it in the divine balances, 
lo, it is wanting. The whole genius of the Book 
is against it. Moses warns the Hebrews against 
the tendency of wealth to injure the soul. Solo- 
mon says, " He that trusteth in riches shall fall." 
Christ declares that " the deceitfulness of riches 
chokes the word." He declares upon general 
principles that " it is easier for a camel to go 
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man 
to enter into the kingdom of God." James teaches 
that " the friendship of the world is enmity against 
God." John says, " If any man love the world, 
the love of the Father is not in him." The apos- 
tates of the first era of the Church were Judas and 
Demas, and they were both ruined by the love of 
money. In the beginning there were but two rich 
men that evinced any love for Jesus, and they were 
both cowards — Nicodemus and Joseph of Arima- 
thea. The rich young man of the Gospel went 
away from Christ. He was sorjowful in going, 
but he went away. My Bible gives me one ex- 
ample where your proposition, O man, was tried 
to the very extreme, and it ingloriously failed to 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



give the heart happiness. Solomon tried it, and it 
landed him in black remorse. I ask you to look 
at his life as I have, and see it as I see it. There 
are no outward reverses in it to speak of. True. 
As Robertson says, " His reign was the type of 
the reign of power and peace ; no war, no national 
disaster interrupted the even flow of the current of 
his days. No loss of child, like David's, pouring 
cold desolation into his soul ; no pestilence, no 
famine. That is all true. Prosperity and riches, 
and the internal development of the nation's life — 
that was the reign of Solomon. And yet with all 
this was Solomon happy? Has God no winged 
arrows in heaven for the heart except those which 
come in the shape of outward calamity? Is there 
no way that God has of making the heart gray and 
old before its time, without sending bereavement 
or loss or sickness? Has the Eternal Justice no 
mode of withering and drying up the inner springs 
of happiness while all is green and wild and fresh 
outwardly?" Look into the history of Solomon 
for the answer. Read the Book of Ecclesiastes. 
That book is the experience of a course such as 
you propose to me. It vibrates through and 
through from its beginning to its end with disgust 
with the world, and with mankind, and with life, 
and with self. It is full also of doubt and blind- 
ness and darkness and despair. It is full of a 
philosophy that perplexes and that hopelessly en- 
gulfs the soul. The Book of Ecclesiastes is the 



"THE INDIGNATION OF A FINE SOUL." 1 49 

darkest and most pitiful book ever written, and yet 
it is a literal transcript of the life you propose to 
me. Contrast Solomon with Paul and with John, 
and contrast the Book of Ecclesiastes with the 
eighth chapter of Romans, and with the Apoca- 
lypse. I mean to rewrite the eighth chapter to 
the Romans. I mean to rewrite the Apocalypse. 
God forbid that I should rewrite the Book of 
Ecclesiastes. " Eat, drink, and be merry " is your 
proposition ; I tell you plainly, O man, there are 
as many mean and damnable lies in your proposi- 
tion as there are words. 

You propose to me, "Take thine ease." There 
is no such thing as ease to a soul which proposes 
to itself the life I propose to myself. I propose to 
live a life which shall leave behind it an influence 
for good that can never die. This is a possible 
thing to do. Jesus lived such a life. After He 
died He lived more efficiently than when He was 
alive. The death of the apostles stopped nothing, 
but sped much. John Brown's influence at Har- 
per's Ferry was as nothing in comparison with 
John Brown's influence in the armies of the North. 
He took Fort Donelson. He marched through 
Georgia. He won the battle of Gettysburg. We 
may criticise the man and his methods, but these 
are the facts of history. 

I mean to climb up into the very heights of 
God. The soul that does that has no time or 
energy to waste in wearing ease. I am like the 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



prisoner of Chillon. Byron makes the illustrious 
Bonnivard dig footholds in the walls of his dun- 
geon, by which he climbs to the lofty window of 
his cell to get a look at the impressive mountains 
of his native Switzerland. For weary years he 
had been confined in the prison of Chillon be- 
low the level of the waters of Lake Geneva. He 
could hear the waters ripple day and night. They 
formed, as it were, a second prison wall. One day 
a bird sang at the prison window the sweetest song 
he had ever heard. It resurrected his heart of 
stone. It created a yearning for a look over the 
land which, was free to the bird. So the prisoner 
dug footholds in the plaster of the wall and climbed 
to the window above. He looked out and he saw 
the mountains unchanged. He saw the snow of a 
thousand years, and learned patience. That look 
put new life into him and gave him a vision that 
lasted him to the end. From that sight he ob- 
tained rest, strength, solace. I mean to climb up 
to God that I may get God's vision of life, and be 
forever consoled by the sight of something grand 
and inviting beyond this life, in which I am now 
as in a prison. I mean to catch a glimpse of the 
towering peaks of immortality. I am cutting foot- 
holds for my faith in the promises of God, and I 
have no time for ease, and I want no ease. The 
joy of such work is far better than ease. I want 
not rich living, I want only a rich life. 

One more word with thee, O man, and that 



" THE INDIGNA IT ON OF A FINE SOUL." 151 



word is this : in thy proposition thou overlookest 
the greatest certainty of the universe, viz., the fact 
of death. Whilst thou art talking about " much 
goods," the pocketless shroud is waiting for thee. 
And whilst thou art talking of " many years," this 
very night the order of God shall be " exit rich 
farmer," "enter greedy heirs." 

Walk, O man, amid thy possessions, and forget 
not thy mortality. Say to thyself, " Self, I am a 
dying man." Say to thy storehouses, " Store- 
houses, I am a dying man." Say to thy barns, 
"Barns, I am a dying man." Say to the farm, 
"Farm, I am a dying man." "Thou fool, this 
night shall thy life be required of thee." 

Such is the indignation of a fine soul when its 
finest susceptibilities are tempted to materialism. 
It is hot and pungent. It is just and right and 
godlike. There are some lessons which we should 
learn from the indignation of a fine soul. Let me 
present these lessons as I see them. 

1 . We should seek an all-around development of 
our nature. 

This nature of ours reaches from nadir to zenith, 
but no part of it can be neglected if we are ever to 
reach a complete self. It will not do to rest satis- 
fied with controlling and keeping in proper place 
the animal part of our nature ; we must look after 
the mental as well. It will not do to rest satisfied 
with looking after the mental, we must look after 
the social, the moral, the spiritual also. Some err 



152 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



here ; they concentrate all their energies in train- 
ing the mental, and stop there. This makes im- 
perfect men. Goethe might be mentioned here. 
He developed his intellect, but not his social 
nature. He would have been a greater man if he 
had developed his social nature. He lived in the 
midst of some of the greatest social and political 
changes that Europe has ever seen, without speak- 
ing a word or lifting a finger to show that he cared 
for them. He did not even intimate that they 
engaged his attention. The social side of his 
nature was so dwarfed that he could appear to be 
practically indifferent to the wants and sorrows and 
upheavals of the world. George William Curtis 
published some years ago a volume entitled " Prue 
and I." In it is a chapter called " Mr. Titbottom's 
Spectacles." The magical quality of these specta- 
cles was that, when their owner looked through 
them at people, he ceased to see persons as they 
ordinarily appeared on the street; he saw their 
real essential character personified. Wonderful 
were the revelations that were made. He looked 
at one man and saw nothing but a ledger. An- 
other was simply a billiard-cue. Another a jockey 
cap. Another a pack of cards. He looked at 
women, and one was a broomstick. Another was 
a fashion-plate. A third was a needle, and thus 
on. The moral of the story is a fact that is true, 
viz., most people are only developed on one side 



' ' THE INDIGNA TION OF A FINE SOUL:' 153 

of their nature, and they are in consequence nar- 
row, and live narrow lives. This is not what God 
intends. This is not what our nature deserves. 

2. Where a soul is developed we should not ex- 
pect it to be satisfied with low things. 

Here, for example, is a young woman, beautiful 
not as an animal merely; she has something be- 
sides animal beauty. She has fine, delicate sensibili- 
ties. She has a social nature which responds to the 
conditions of humanity at large. She has a keen 
conscience, deciding right and wrong. She must 
do right at any cost. She must sympathize with 
the world's sorrows and infirmities, and give a 
helping hand. Forbid her this, and you cut off 
the highest joy and satisfaction of her life. She 
is a woman with an ideally perfect character before 
her as her goal. She has an ideal outlook. There 
are hosts of such young women in the Christian 
Church. It happens that she mates with a hus- 
band who is a splendid business man. But he is 
nothing else, and he cares for nothing else. He 
builds a beautiful home ; fills it with everything — 
carpets, furniture, pictures, bric-a-brac — and then 
wonders that she is not fed. He expects her, with 
all her higher developments, to feed and live on 
bricks and marble and carpets and sofas ; and he 
wonders that she is not satisfied. He addresses 
her as the man of the parable addresses his soul. 
He should open the door for her out into the world 



154 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



of philanthropy and Christian service. That is 
what she needs, and only with that can she ever 
be made happy. 

3. If we are ever to be what we should be and 
live as we should live, we mitst make Christ, who 
spake the parable, our model, and get our ideals 
and inspirations from Him. 

A visitor going into the studio of a great painter 
found on his easel some very fine gems, brilliant 
and sparkling. Asking why he kept them there, 
the painter replied : " I keep them there to tone 
up my eyes. When I am working in pigments, 
insensibly the sense of color becomes weakened. 
By having these pure colors before me to refresh 
my eyes the sense of color is brought up again, 
just as the musician by his tuning-fork brings his 
strings up to the concert pitch." For right living 
we need clear conceptions of the Perfect One. 
Such conceptions only produce high moral impres- 
sions. We need to be toned up. We need the 
high and holy life of the perfect Man, Christ Jesus. 
He raises our conceptions. He re-gives us the 
ideals which are beginning to fade out. He tones 
up our spiritual eyes, so that they discern clearly 
and rightly and accurately. 

As we abide in the house of God to-day let us 
seek a vision of what God would have us to be. 
My fellow-men, a vision is not an impromptu 
affair. It is a result. It is a growth. Now we 
should honestly give ourselves up to dreams and 



' ' THE INDIGNA TlON OF A FINE SOUL." 155 

to contemplation and to thought and to aspiration 
until we reach a glowing vision — a vision of the 
play of principle and its undeviating results; a 
vision of Christ and His glory, and the place which 
He holds in the universe ; a vision of the gospel, 
what it is, and what it is doing in the world. 
Above all things, we should give ourselves up to 
dreams, and to contemplation, and to deep, serious 
thought, and to aspiration, until we reach a glow- 
ing vision of self- — what we should be ; what it is 
possible for us to be ; what Christ has promised 
we shall be, if we let Him into our lives to inspire 
and to mold. Such a vision we should look upon 
as a divine gift from God. We should look upon 
it as a promise and as a prophecy. We should 
grasp it and keep it as we keep our own souls. 
We should ever beljeve in it as a possible thing, 
and never cease working toward it until it is com- 
pletely and grandly realized in a finished Christian 
personality. To reach such a vision, and to gaze 
upon it until we incarnate it — this is to deal fairly 
with our soul, and to protect it from the power 
of every degrading thing. 



VII. 



HELP AND CHEER FROM THE GLORIFIED 
DEAD. 



VII. 



HELP AND CHEER FROM THE 
GLORIFIED DEAD. 

" Wherefore, seeing that we are compassed about with so great a 
cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience the race that is set before 
us." — Hebrews 12: 1. 

THERE is no doubt about it, the simplest and 
most obvious interpretation of the text gives us 
this great fact : the Church in heaven is interested 
in the Church on earth — the glorified dead cheer 
us on to our goal. 

There is great help in a cheer. A cheer is a 
moral power. It adds the life of those who cheer 
us to our life, and it inspires us with their courage 
and their feelings and their aims. It awakens our 
latent energies, and fills us with hope. By means 
of it we are born into our higher self. It carries 
us to success. 

You have, perhaps, seen this incident related in 
the daily press ; it is apropos as an illustration. 
A New York fireman was at the top of a ladder 
striving to gain an entrance through the window 
into a burning tenement. There was a sleeping 
i59 



i6o 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



babe within. The dense, curling smoke, in which 
was a fierce bright-red jet of flame, dashed in his 
face and baffled him ; once, twice, thrice, he made 
an attempt to enter, and finally gave up and 
turned to come down. The babe was abandoned 
to its fate. The on- watching crowd below was 
horror-stricken. At this juncture of affairs, one 
man in the crowd, as if moved by an inspiration 
from God, cried, " Let us give him a cheer!" 
The proposal found the response of an intuition in 
the hearts of the vast crowd, and in a second 
every voice rent the air. To the fireman the voice 
of the people was the voice of God. Under the 
inspiration of their cheer he ran up the ladder and 
dashed through the window, and then appeared 
again with the rescued child in his arms. Under 
the power of a cheer he accomplished what would 
otherwise have been impossible. When he came 
down to the foot of the ladder and presented 
the child to its mother, New York never heard a 
heartier plaudit than that which the crowd gave 
the hero of the hour. What was in that cheer? 
In it was the picture of the babe in danger; in it 
was the horror of the crowd ; in it was the expres- 
sion of human hope. It carried to the soul of the 
fireman the feelings and the wishes and the sym- 
pathies and the daring of the multitudes. In it 
the strength of the on-looking crowd took posses- 
sion of the man, and made him a hero. It was 
the strength of the crowd that dashed into the fire- 



THE GLORIFIED DEAD. i6l 

filled room, and that dashed out again with the 
saved life. 

There is great help in a cheer. It brings into 
the soul of man the added life of others. This 
increased power, this added life of others, we 
all need, if we are to reach with honor the goal 
of a grand earthly career. This will be appar- 
ent to any one who grasps fully what the goal of 
life is. 

What is the goal of life? Perfect manhood in 
Christ Jesus — that is the goal of our life. Our 
best possible self reached — that is our goal. A 
life in earnest — that is our goal. Are we not told 
by the text to make our life a life in earnest? 
Life is to be a race. What do we see in a race ? 
Muscles strained; veins like whip-cords; beaded 
perspiration; strenuous, intense, earnest speed. 
The reality in the mental and spiritual man corre- 
sponding to these symbols in the physical man — 
that is our goal. The figure of the Olympian 
Agonistae means a life in earnest or it means noth- 
ing. Useful service in life, or duty well done — 
that is our goal. Temptation met and resisted and 
conquered — that is our goal. Power to love, to 
be just, to be pure, to be true, to control external 
life and internal life — that is our goal. Honest 
success in the avocation of life which we follow — 
that is our goal. The success of the Christian 
lawyer, of the Christian business man, of the 
Christian artificer, of the Christian scholar, is just 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



so much power added to the personality which he 
consecrates to the cause of God and to the uplifting 
of humanity in the world. We should therefore 
look upon success in our daily avocation as a duty 
which we owe God and man. We should push 
our business, and our study, and our practice, and 
our manual toil until they have become a success. 
To reach success in every case will take hard 
work; but to do hard and healthful work is the 
purpose of God in bringing us into the world. 
Hard work has always been the condition of suc- 
cess in all the departments of life. No man ever 
became a Bunsen or a Helmholtz in the laboratory 
apart from endless experimenting with chemicals. 
No man or woman ever went up the way of the 
violin, or the way of the piano, or the way of the 
organ, or the way of the orchestra, except by 
labor. The Beethovens, the Mendelssohns, the 
Mozarts, the Haydns, and the Handels, who cheer 
human life with their sweetness of music, were 
all incarnated energy and ambition and push. 

We cannot too often set before man a high 
standard or urge upon him the necessity of effort 
Every one has his quantum of duty in this world. 
Every one has his responsibilities to meet, and his 
lot to fill, and his character to build and maintain ; 
and only constant effort can make him successful 
in his trusts. A man may have desire, and he 
needs desire ; but desire enervates if it be not 
backed by effort. A man may have hope, and 



THE GLORIFIED DEAD. 



I6 3 



he needs hope; but hope will always meet with 
defeat, if it remain inert and be nothing more 
than a mere expectation of good luck. A man 
may have aspiration, and he needs aspiration ; but 
aspiration will prove volatile and will evaporate if 
it be not married to work. There is no substi- 
tute for effort if a man would be successful. But 
success, success in all of the honorable avocations 
of life — that is our goal. The protection of self 
against all deterioration — that is our goal. We 
must conserve and keep all the advances we make. 
Our life must be a perpetual going forward. If 
we lose that which we have attained, our ending 
in the race of life will be worse than our starting. 
There is no sight in life so pitiable as that of a 
man who is carried backward by deterioration, 
and who has lost all ambition to resist deterioration. 
An old man, who began enthusiastically with high, 
moral sentiments and purposes, whom life has 
hewn, and cut down, and diminished, and soured, 
and made censorious, and deprived of all impulse 
for virtue and for disinterestedness — an old man 
who began with all the best sentiments of youth 
bright and glowing, but who has allowed himself to 
be vulgarized, who stands in his old age indifferent 
morally, and who allows himself, with open eyes, 
to gravitate down and down — there is not, under 
God's heaven, another sight more pitiable than such 
an old man. If there is a sight more pitiable, 
it is the sight of a young man without impulse in 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



the spring of his life ; with no freshness, with no 
spontaneity, with no aspiration, with no romance, 
with no outburst, with no generosity. A young 
man should be full of fiery passion and impetu- 
osity and ambition and tendencies that are almost 
irresistible ; but he should see to it that these are 
kept on the right track. These things on the 
right track are our protection against deterioration, 
and our assurance of a progress that will ulti- 
mately bring us to the goal of life. 

Such is the goal of our life toward which we 
should press. I have not put it too high, I have 
not made it too great. The point before us now 
is this : that to reach the goal of our life we need 
help and cheer. We need something to counter- 
act the things which are against us. What are the 
things which are against us? Our own indisposi- 
tion to hard work is against us ; our timidity by 
nature is against us. We are full of self- distrust, 
and this is against us. Our sensitiveness to the 
criticism of others is against us ; the power of our 
temptations is against us ; the vastness of our tasks 
is against us ; the disability which is ours by he- 
redity is against us. With some men the hands 
of twenty ancestors are let down to lift them up 
to success, but these men are few ; with the major- 
ity of men the contrary is the case : the hands 
of twenty ancestors with fiery fingers are pulling 
them down while they are trying to lift them- 
selves up. All of these things make us hesitate 



THE GLORIFIED DEAD. 



and fill us with fear, and our hesitation and fear 
weaken us. Our failure in past efforts is against 
us. Our underestimation by others is against us ; 
they put us into withering contrast with the great, 
and make us feel our littleness. 

I knew a man once who had the good fortune • 
to hear Rubinstein when he was in America; but 
his privilege made a cynic out of him. He always 
took occasion to remark, when any one played 
upon the piano before him, " I heard Rubinstein 
when he was here ; I really have never heard any 
piano-music worth listening to since." It would 
take a powerful cheer to counteract such a dis- 
heartening contrast. When I started as a young 
man in the ministry, among the first things that 
happened after my installation was a call from an 
old man of the congregation, who greeted me in 
this way : " David, I called around to say that you 
will have to preach tip-top sermons if you mean 
to succeed in suiting me; for I have been used 
to hearing such men as Thomas Chalmers and 
Thomas Guthrie and Dr. Candlish and Robert Mur- 
ray MacCheyne and Dr. William Arnot. I am high 
up in my preaching tastes." I was downcast for a 
month after that. The only cheer that lifted me 
up again was the translation of that good father to 
the land where Chalmers and Guthrie and Cand- 
lish and MacCheyne and Payson still carry on their 
ministry. While here on earth, the good father 
was a hindrance to me ; but the moment his face 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



looked down upon me from the glory-cloud, he 
became a help. 

Because of the obstacles which meet us in our 
way as we push on toward the goal of life, we are 
in constant need of help and cheer; this need God 
sees, and for this need God provides. He brings 
our fellow-men into our lives, and makes them 
powerful factors for inspiration ; He brings into our 
lives the glorified dead, and makes them cheer us 
on. There are a host of other factors which God 
uses to make us strong and to build into us the 
elements of victory ; but our text excludes these, 
and centers our thoughts solely upon the influence 
of the celestial witnesses. It was the glorified 
dead that put hope and courage and faith and life 
into the discouraged Hebrew Christians. A thou- 
sand faces rose before them in the long vista of 
history, and with united voice the generations of 
the past bade them be of good cheer, and trust 
in God, and triumph. Abel cheered them, and 
so did Abraham, and so did Moses, and so did 
Samuel, and so did Rahab. Each voice gave 
added thrill to the cheer, and all together pro- 
claimed that any man, even though he may be 
weakened and disfigured by a thousand faults, 
can succeed and become illustrious if he only let 
God into his life, and live " as seeing Him who is 
invisible." 

How do the glorified dead help and cheer us? 
This is the practical question of this sermon, and 
toward this question we have been pressing from 



THE GLORIFIED DEAD. 



167 



the very beginning. The answer of this question 
will assist us in realizing the fact that we do pos- 
sess their help and cheer. Of what value are our 
possessions if we are ignorant of them? Igno- 
rance will make us like the farmer who has mines 
of gold beneath his soil, but who knows it not. 
He raises nothing but potatoes, nothing but corn, 
nothing but cattle ; yet under the feet of his cat- 
tle, and under the soil on which the corn grows, 
are grains of gold. He is poor in the midst of 
wealth. Treasures of the soul are ours, and yet 
we are poor; power is within reach, and yet we 
are weak; our weakness and our poverty come 
because we do not know and use what is ours. 

I wish to notice two ways in which the glorified 
dead help us on toward our goal: 

I. They help us by what they have left us as a 
heritage. 

1 . They have left us the fruitage of their labors. 

The cities we live in, they built them ; the insti- 
tutions we enjoy, they founded them ; the great 
reformations which are being carried on, they in- 
augurated them ; the books in our libraries, they 
wrote them. Contemporary thought is in the 
minority in the world of books. We should be 
different men from what we are, inferior men, if 
we did not have their cities and their institutions 
and their reformations and their books and their 
lives. The world would be infinitely poorer if you 
took away from it the results which come from the 
lives of the great men who have gone. They were 



i68 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



all of them altruistic, and lived for corning genera- 
tions; they enlarged life, broadened it, deepened 
it. Human life was broader after Abraham lived 
and exercised his marvelous faith. It was still 
broader after Moses lived and gave the world the 
Ten Commandments. It was broader still after 
the prophets lived and dreamed their enthusiastic 
dreams, and left the human race their glowing 
visions of the coming kingdom of God. Men have 
always been helped by their predecessors, and 
have climbed to heights upon the greatness and 
the talents of the departed. Alexander the Great 
always carried with him a copy of the Iliad, and 
the hero of the Iliad, Achilles, the mighty man, 
the self-willed, the stern, the strong, the masterful, 
capable of bending the world as he wished, became 
the ideal after which Alexander molded his life. 
Here is the secret of much that Alexander did. 
It was Achilles who made him. 

Alexander carried the Iliad ; you carry the 
Epistles of Paul and the Apocalypse of John, and 
your life is sweetened and broadened and illumi- 
nated and deepened and ennobled by the writings 
of these holy men. 

2. They have left us their influences. 

The great ones go away in the flesh only to 
come back as universal presences. The prophets, 
for example, seemed almost powerless and useless 
in their time. But look at the life they have lived 
since. They have been God's pilots guiding the 



THE GLORIFIED DEAD. 



169 



Church of the latter days through all its perils. 
From their black bosoms they send forth the blasts 
of God's lightning and the roar of His thunder; if 
the Church needs rebuke to-day, it is they who 
must hurl it. When George Washington was liv- 
ing he was spoken against and abused ; but now 
he is revered, and his words go one hundred times 
further, and carry one hundred times more weight 
and influence than the words of the greatest living 
American statesman. 

3. They have left us a holy fellowship. 

Although they are invisible, yet we fellowship 
with them. Physical presence is not necessary for 
fellowship. We are conscious that we live a great 
deal of our lives with those whom we never saw ; 
whose human figure we cannot even imagine, 
but whose poetry, whose essays, whose historical 
works, whose prayers, whose religious medita- 
tions, and whose holy resolutions we read. These 
good people are more companionable and more 
personal to us than many whom we behold with 
the outward vision. They take hold of more 
points in us, and higher points, than those who 
dwell beneath the same roof. My fellow-men, the 
latitude and longitude of the soul are magnificent, 
and in consequence thereof, great and wide and 
grand is the wealth of the soul and the life of the 
soul. Men everywhere in the universe belong to 
the soul, and it appropriates to itself the sum of 
all living. 



i ;o 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



4. They have left for our admiration genuine 
greatness worked out in human nature. 

It is everything to us that they once lived in 
our nature. The sun controls and attracts and 
dominates the earth, and thrills it with its life and 
heat, not simply because it is greater than the 
earth, but also and especially because sun and 
earth are composed substantially of the same ele- 
ments. They are of one nature. The earth, as a 
ring of cosmic vapor, was flung off from the parent 
planet, the sun. The glorified dead influence us 
because they and we are in nature substantially 
one and the same ; partakers of their nature, we 
are susceptible to their sympathies and their aims. 
Their greatness and purity and nobility reach and 
stir the greatness and purity and nobility which 
slumber in us, for, having their nature, we have 
their attributes to be reached and stirred. By 
their triumphs they create within us the conscious- 
ness of coming glory. First there is awakened in 
us a response to their nobility as they heroically 
struggle, then this awakened response develops 
into downright admiration. There is nothing men 
so admire, there is no picture that human fancy so 
delights to paint, as the picture of a man suffering 
and triumphing. Prometheus bound! CEdipus in 
Colonus! Hamlet! It is tragic images like these 
that haunt men with a strange fascination. And 
why? Because in them we see a man striving, 
struggling, suffering, and, finally, winning. This 



THE GLORIFIED DEAD. 



171 



is what we admire. Now what we admire we seek 
to reproduce, and that we seek to be. Human 
admirations are the mightiest of all the forces for 
the molding of character. The heroes of the past 
fill our admirations with things that make for 
nobility and manhood and spiritual power and 
godlikeness. 

5 . They have left us their grand words. 

Their words are still with us, and they are life 
and power. Moses declares, " Man shall not live 
by bread alone, but by every word which pro- 
ceedeth out of the mouth of God." Will the time 
ever come when these words shall fail to lead im- 
mortal souls into life and light? Joshua declares, 
" Not one thing that God has promised shall ever 
fail of fulfillment." Can the world ever forget that ? 
David declares, " Though I walk through the val- 
ley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; for 
Thou art with me ; Thy rod and Thy staff they do 
comfort me." Who that ever heard these sweet 
words means to let them slip? Mankind has 
stowed them away down deep in the recesses 
of human nature, that they may be used in the 
dying hour. Such are some of the declarations 
which the glorified dead have left behind them, 
and each declaration is a cheer that quickens 
the very roots of our being, and so vitalizes 
them that our whole nature blossoms and fruits 
into lofty emotions and holy resolutions and heroic 
deeds. 



172 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



There is another form in which the glorified 
dead help and cheer us ; it is the second point of 
my sermon. 

II. They help and cheer us by their present 
interest in us, and by their present expectation 
for us. 

We have found that the lives and examples 
which the glorified dead have left the world show 
the possibilities of those who come after. This is 
much. There is vitality in this. It kindles cour- 
age and sustains hope. But this does not cover 
the whole teaching of my text. The inspired 
writer declares that there is far more than this ; 
the glorified dead are not witnesses only in this 
low historical form. We are not simply encom- 
passed about by them in the narrative of the 
eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
That is inadequate as an explanation of the text, 
and minimizes the reward of the glorified, as well 
as lessens our possessions. We are compassed 
about by them personally. This Scripture teaches 
that the reward of faith lifts a true man at death 
to a position from which he can look at the whole 
course of the history of Christ's people and Christ's 
cause, from beginning to end. The text uses a 
poetic figure to convey an absolute fact. The 
figure is taken from the Isthmian games. The 
racers are on the ground-floor of the vast amphi- 
theater, striving for the crown ; on all sides of the 
theater rise the great galleries, which are built one 



THE GLORIFIED DEAD. 



173 



above another, tier on tier, forty rows high, almost 
perpendicular. Out from every seat in these forty 
tiers looks a human face, with eyes riveted upon 
the contestants below. These great crowds of 
excited humanity, towering on every side, remind 
one of the multitudinous and mountainous clouds 
which sometimes encircle the horizon of this earth 
of ours, and throw up their pinnacles and beetling 
headlands into the air. Raphael introduces such 
clouds into his pictures ; but when we look into 
the golden mists of Raphael's pictures, these mists 
resolve themselves into multitudes of calm angel- 
faces looking down upon the scene. 

This is the figure used to picture the glorified 
dead, and to reveal their attitude toward us. They 
are interested witnesses, watching us, and knowing 
us, and wishing us well, and rejoicing in and ap- 
proving our every right thought and purpose and 
conquest. Is not this natural ? If going to heaven 
changed our friends and made them indifferent 
to us, who would wish to have his friends go to 
heaven? When our friends leave us they do not 
go out of the kingdom of God ; they go more 
fully into the kingdom of God. They wave their 
crowns to us, and strike out from their harps of 
gold every chorus and melody which the strings 
contain, to thrill us into quicker steps toward them. 
Because their love has been perfected, their inter- 
est in us now is incomparably more intense than 
was their interest during their earthly life. 



174 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



This teaching is not novel ; it is in accord with 
the whole trend of the Word of God, as the Word 
deals with the relations between heaven and earth 
and the influence of each. Have you forgotten 
the interest which those in heaven took in the 
transfiguration scene on Mount Hermon? Here 
is plainly set forth both knowledge and interest in 
heaven relative to the activities of earth. Have 
you forgotten what the angel from heaven told 
Cornelius, the Roman centurion? He said that 
the prayers and alms of the Roman were be- 
fore God in heaven as a memorial of the man. 
Heaven knew what Cornelius was doing and ap- 
plauded him ; Heaven gave him a memorial even 
while the man was yet on the earth. The people 
whom he helped on earth emblazoned his deeds 
on the streets of Jerusalem above. Have you for- 
gotten the words of the Son of God concerning 
heaven's knowledge of the conversions on earth? 
" Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in heaven 
over every sinner that repenteth." 

Our point is this : the interest and expectation 
of those who are on the other side of the battle- 
ments of heaven are a help to us, and a cheer. It 
gives us pleasure to be able to gratify them by our 
well-doing. We put the thought of their appro- 
bation of our true life against the lust for riches, 
and against the words of earthly tempters, and 
against the gratification of bodily pleasures; and 
their approbation outweighs these. It outweighs, 



THE GLORIFIED DEAD. 



175 



too, the realization of all our low ambitions. The 
thought of the welcome which they will give us 
when they meet us at the beautiful gate draws us 
back from sin and keeps us holy. 

Instinctively we keep ourselves pure for them. 
My fellow-men, God puts a tremendous power for 
good into our lives when He puts into them the 
consciousness that the eyes of all the good are 
upon us in the struggles of life. The eyes of the 
army of Israel resting upon David gave the lad 
the victory over the giant Goliath. 

Our Master serves us as an illustration just here. 
He shows us the need of our human nature, and 
the way in which approbation cheers and helps. 
His experience also touches and illumines some of 
the dark points of the world over yonder. When 
He was fronting Calvary with its great battle, 
Moses and Elijah came to Him and talked over 
with Him the coming crisis. They told Him how 
all heaven gathered with interest around the cross, 
and how the hosts of the redeemed before the 
throne were all looking to Him for the confirma- 
tion of their salvation, and how all heaven was 
expecting Him to be true. When they left Jesus 
they left Him with the expectation of the glorified 
dead beating in His soul as an inspiration. By the 
stimulus which this gave Him, He went through 
Gethsemane and conquered on Calvary. What 
the cloud of witnesses did for Jesus the cloud of 
witnesses should do for us, the followers of Christ. 



i 7 6 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Faces from this glorious cloud are looking earth- 
ward to see that we carry to completion the pur- 
poses which they left us, and the plans which they 
inaugurated, and the hopes which they cherished. 

I have said a great deal about the saints, and 
about the place which the saints should have 
in our lives. Let me in closing urge something 
for the Master. Above all things we need Him 
in our lives. In running our race we must look 
to Jesus. Sometimes in using our other helps we 
forget Him, and largely crowd Him out of our 
lives ; even the best of men do this. Our liability 
to err here is strikingly set forth by the noted 
dream of Junius, one of the old, old saints of by- 
gone years. Junius was perfectly satisfied with 
himself and with his success in life. His dream 
was this : One night a stranger came into his room 
and greeted him with a smile, and asked him, 
" Junius, how is your zeal?" Conceiving of his 
zeal as a physical quantity, Junius put his hand into 
his bosom, and brought his zeal forth and presented 
it to the stranger for inspection. The stranger took 
it and put it into the scales which he carried, and 
carefully weighed it. " One hundred pounds," he 
exclaimed. Junius was pleased. The stranger, 
pushing his investigation further, broke the mass 
into atoms, and put all into a crucible, and put the 
crucible into the fire; when the mass was thor- 
oughly fused, he took it out and set it down to 
cool. It congealed in cooling, and when turned 



THE GLORIFIED DEAD. 177 

out on the hearth exhibited a series of layers 
or strata, all of which fell apart at the touch of 
the hammer. The stranger severely tested and 
weighed each, and took careful notes. When he 
had finished, he presented the analysis to Junius. 
The paper of notes read thus : "Analysis of the 
zeal of Junius, a candidate for the crown of glory. 
His zeal amounts, in all, to one hundred pounds. 
Bigotry, ten pounds ; personal ambition, twenty- 
three pounds ; love of praise, nineteen pounds ; 
pride of denomination, fifteen pounds ; pride of tal- 
ent, fourteen pounds ; love of authority, twelve 
pounds ; love to fellow-man, three pounds ; love to 
Jesus Christ, four pounds." When he read the 
paper, Junius was smitten with instantaneous con- 
viction, and cried to heaven, " O Christ, take Junius 
out of my life, and put Thyself into it. Help me 
to live by Thee and for Thee." Like the recon- 
structed Junius, we should make Christ our goal 
in life. The building up of self, and the winning 
of the approbation of the good, should be made 
secondary and contributory to our loyalty to 
Christ. 

The question of application which I wish to put 
to you is this : Are you letting Christ into your 
life as the dominating influence ? If you have not 
hitherto let Him come in, let Him now come in 
with all His light and all His transforming power. 
Do you know what He will do for you if you let 
Him come in ? He will teach you, first of all, your 



i;8 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



possibilities ; He will show you the sonship of God 
which belongs to you ; He will give you the true 
ideal of a true life; He will create within you a 
faith in yourself ; He will fill you with His own 
expectations with regard to you ; He will develop 
within you a consciousness of power possessed; 
He will teach you large things, and inspire you to 
work toward them ; He will put an "Excelsior " 
into your heart. Do you not know that in order 
to the uplifting of man, the very first need is the 
creation within man of faith in himself, a belief that 
through the grace of God he can reach his highest 
aspirations? According to our faith, so is it with 
us. The child that is constantly called " dunce " 
or " fool," first suspects that he is a "dunce" or 
a "fool," then believes that he is; and finally 
comes to be a " dunce " or a " fool." There is no 
trouble in making a man better, if he believes he 
can be made better, or if he wishes to become 
better. But when he is content to be precisely 
what he is, or when he has lost faith in himself, 
or sees no future for himself, there is no use in try- 
ing. The old story connected with the mytholog- 
ical wanderings of Ulysses, as told in the Odyssey 
of Homer, is in point here as an illustration. A 
number of the companions of Ulysses fell into the 
hands of the sorceress Circe and were turned into 
swine. If, in that condition, they could have 
remembered that they were once men; if they 
could have remembered their homes, the wars in 



THE GLORIFIED DEAD. 



179 



which they fought, the ambitions and the strivings 
of their manhood ; if they could have desired to 
return to their country, and become again some- 
thing more than the occupants of a pen and a bed 
of straw — then there would have been hope for 
them, that they might some day have been deliv- 
ered from the power of the sorceress. But they 
were content to be nothing more than swine, and 
hence their case was hopeless. Christ breaks the 
spell of sin which robs men of the consciousness of 
what they are and may be ; He shows the human 
race " the Son of God," which is potentially in 
every man ; He helps us to believe in ourselves, 
and to aspire for ourselves, and to take an interest 
in ourselves. 

My fellow-men, it is Christ in a man that makes 
the man. We need that the fibers of our being 
shall be locked and interlocked with the fibers of 
His being ; then through His working and power 
in us wonderful things will be produced. Thus it 
was in the past ; thus it will be in the future. It 
is Christ who marches through the ages in the 
noble personalities which make the centuries grand 
and sublime. A miner's son, who sang in the 
streets for his bread, led the Reformation, and 
unbound the Bible for the world. Christ made 
Luther! A farmer, with the Spirit of God in him, 
laid broad and deep the foundations of England's 
liberties. Christ made Cromwell! A jail-bird 
was so transformed that he was able to write the 



i8o 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



" Pilgrim's Progress." Christ made John Bunyan! 
A lonely man, with the living Christ in his heart, 
who died in the heart of Africa upon his knees, 
with his head pillowed upon the Bible, opened the 
Dark Continent to Christian civilization. Christ 
made David Livingstone! If you are to be any- 
thing in the world, Christ must make you. You 
can succeed only by His permission and help. 
Have you let Him into your life to work and to 
build up and to transform? You are neighborly 
with Him ; but that will not do. He must be 
allowed to become something more than your 
neighbor. He must be admitted into your heart. 
He must be allowed to abide at the very focus of 
your being, and in the very springs of your life. 
Mere neighborliness would never have made Paul 
or John. It took personal, enthusiastic faith and 
love and surrender to make them. That you may 
reach the goal of life, that you may realize your 
best possible self, that you may be what Christ 
can make you, I call upon you to make an absolute 
surrender of your soul and body and spirit to 
Christ. Open your whole life to His in-coming. 



VIII. 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST WHILE APPROPRIATING 
HIS ROBES. 



VIII. 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST WHILE APPRO- 
PRIATING HIS ROBES. 

"And they crucified Him, and parted His garments" — Mat- 
thew 27 : 35. 

THE story of the cross is most powerfully told. 
And yet it is simply told. Indeed, we might say 
that it is not told at all. That is, there is no effort 
in the telling of it. It tells itself. The event car- 
ries in itself its own power. I often contrast it in 
my own thought with the way uninspired writers 
tell their stories. 

For example, I contrast the story of the cross, 
as we have it on the Gospel page, with the address 
of Mark Antony over the dead body of Caesar. 
How dramatic Mark Antony is! What effort 
(skilled effort) he puts forth! What labored peri- 
ods he utters! What a study after effect he dis- 
plays! He acts; he elocutionizes; he uses the 
rent robe of Caesar and the dying will of Caesar. 
He uses the dagger of Cassius. He uses his own 
personality, and puts the crowd under the play of 
183 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



his own agony and moves the people by the con- 
tagion of his own strong feeling. Mark Antony's 
address is passion at a white heat, and the dead 
body of Caesar owes two thirds of its power to 
that passion. It was Caesar's dead body plus Mark 
Antony's burning words and skillful art and deep 
passion at a white heat that moved Rome from 
center to circumference. But you say, " Mark 
Antony was full of intense feeling ; Mark Antony 
felt the death of Caesar down to the core of his 
being." Yes, no doubt; but Matthew and John, 
the biographers of Jesus Christ, were also full of 
feeling. They felt the death of Christ down to 
the core of their being. They wrote out of an 
anguished heart. Yet there is not a trace of pas- 
sion on the sacred page. There is not a word to 
show how they felt. There is not a tear. There 
is not a single burst of indignation. There is noth- 
ing like "And here ran Casszus' dagger through" 
or "If you have tears to shed, prepare to shed them 
now." 

To me this is remarkable. It centers my atten- 
tion ; it sets me thinking ; it brings me face to face 
with the question, " Why is this? " I believe that 
this is the reason why : God wants us to look at 
the fact of the crucifixion of His Son uninfluenced, 
and so completely uninfluenced that we may come 
to our own unaided conclusion with regard to it. 
That we may be permitted to judge it unbiased, 
He keeps out of the story all the human passion of 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



I8 5 



the narrator and compels us to stand face to face 
with the fact, and with the fact only. The Gospel 
narrator uses words, just as the artist uses pig- 
ments, and paints what transpires just as it tran- 
spires. But he paints well. He paints exactly. 
He puts the power of life into every picture. 
In the crucial picture, for instance, you see the 
crucificial hammer strike the nail which pierces 
Christ's hands and feet, and the blow is so vivid 
that the stroke of that crucificial hammer is heard 
not only on the mountains of Palestine, but it echoes 
and rings throughout the universe. Every picture 
pertaining to the cross is as true to life as this pict- 
ure is. All are portrayed with exactitude, viz. : 
the reeling earth ; the rending rocks ; the darkened 
sun ; the mocking Pharisees ; the callous Romans ; 
the weeping Galilean women; the unthinking 
crowd ; and the gambling soldiers. All these are 
as vivid and as real as the picture which shows us 
the blow driving the cruel nail through the quiver- 
ing flesh. 

But it is my purpose in dealing with these pict- 
ures which give us the story of the cross, to be 
eclectic and not comprehensive. We are compelled, 
by the limit of time at our disposal, to make a 
choice, and to confine our thoughts to that choice. 
We choose but one picture, and that the picture of 
the soldiers in their relation to Christ. 

The story of the soldiers at the cross is easily 
told. They were Romans. They were stationed 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



at Jerusalem in the Tower of Antonia, and were 
the executioners of Roman law in the province of 
Judaea. They were men who had no will of their 
own ; they were instruments in the hands of those 
who were in authority. It was they who drove 
the nails and transfixed Jesus to the cross; but 
they did this at the command of Pilate, the Roman 
governor. They had little heart in the matter one 
way or the other. Their familiarity with such 
scenes made them as nearly indifferent as it was 
possible to be. They were used to shrieks of agony, 
and to writhing forms on crosses, and to the white 
emaciated faces of dead criminals. Having cruci- 
fied Christ, they had nothing further to do but to 
stand guard around the cross until suffering had 
issued in death. Yes, there was one thing more 
which they had to do ; but it was a thing which 
was not distasteful to them — they had to divide 
among them the robes of the Christ whom they 
had just nailed to the cross. These were theirs as 
part of their hire for the bloody work which they 
had done. They cared nothing for Christ, but 
they did care for His garments. While they were 
yet warm with the warmth of the sacred person of 
Christ, and in the presence of the Suffering One 
who looked down at them from the cross, they 
gave themselves to the task of dividing his robes, 
and eagerly each soldier took his portion. 

We can scarcely bear to think of it — these com- 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



l8 7 



mon, coarse men wearing Christ's garments. If 
John wore that seamless robe, the touching of the 
hem of which once gave health and life to the sick 
and dying, that would be a comfort to us; but 
there is a positive shock in the thought that the 
brutal Roman soldier, who drove the nails through 
the quivering nerves of the Redeemer's flesh, should 
publicly and boastingly wear it over his rough form 
and his heart of stone. There is a resemblance and 
there is a sympathy between John and Jesus ; but 
there is neither resemblance nor sympathy between 
a Roman soldier and Jesus. Christ's robe worn by 
the Roman soldier who crucified Him ! The thing 
is utterly incongruous. It is mortifying. It is 
humiliating. It is startling. 

The mistake of the soldiers was this : the gar- 
ments of Christ were everything to them, but Christ 
Himself was nothing to them. They esteemed 
and valued the garments, but despised the Christ. 
They overlooked the fact that if there had been 
no Christ there would have been no seamless robe 
to appropriate and enjoy. The robe without Christ 
had a certain value, it is true ; but with a living 
Christ in it it was infinitely more valuable. When 
Christ was in the robe, it had healing virtue ; but 
when Christ was crucified, it had no healing, life- 
giving power whatever. 

There are multitudes to-day who are like these 
soldiers. For example, there are crowds of citizens 



i88 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



in this republic who glory in the civil rights which 
our national fathers bequeathed, but they hate and 
crucify the Christ of our fathers. It was under 
the inspiration of Christ that our fathers sacrificed 
and fought for the civil rights which they be- 
queathed us. If there had been no Christ, there 
would have been no Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock, 
and no Covenanters in the Carolinas, and no Hu- 
guenots in New Jersey, and no Hollanders in New 
York. Without the Plymouth Rock Pilgrims, and 
the Covenanters, and the Huguenots, and the Hol- 
landers, there would have been no Revolutionary 
War. If there had been no Revolutionary War 
there would have been no Republic of the United 
States. There is no fact more patent in history 
than this : A merican freedom owes its origin to 
Jesus Christ. Yet there are Americans by the thou- 
sands who take the freedom and crucify the Christ. 
But what is freedom dissociated from Christ? 
What is it worth in comparison with freedom which 
throbs with the life of Christ ? Freedom, when it 
is a robe with the living Christ in it, will cure and 
keep in life the nations which touch its hem ; but 
freedom, when it is a robe torn from the sacred per- 
son of Christ and with no Christ in it, will let the 
nations die, even while they own it and handle it 
and boast about it. As a nation we needed Christ 
to procure our liberty, and as a nation we need 
Christ to continue to us our liberty. 

We can see what God will do for a nation if we 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



189 



look into the story of that old historic nation of the 
world, the Jewish nation. Although China is an 
older nation chronologically, yet in comparison 
with it, China, strictly speaking, cannot be said to 
have a history. Why was the Jewish nation what 
it was? Why did it outlive such mighty nations 
as the Chaldean, the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the 
Phoenician, the Egyptian, the Grecian, the Roman ? 
The answer is, it had a different God from these 
nations. Its God was the one living and true God. 
The right relation between us and the true God, 
that is what makes the difference between man and 
man, and between nation and nation, and between 
civilization and civilization. There is everything 
in the way we treat God and His Christ. 

Having sketched thus briefly the story of the 
soldiers at the cross, it is my purpose in this ser- 
mon to set forth the fact that the story of the sol- 
diers is a parable, and the conduct of the soldiers 
in appropriating the garments of Christ is a typical 
and continuous act. The soldiers are an ancient 
type of a modern class. Our community is full of 
men and women who prize and enjoy and appro- 
priate the blessings flowing from Christ, whom to- 
day they are crucifying. I am anxious that they 
shall see this, and that they shall in the presence 
of God answer to their own souls such questions 
as these : " Is this right? " " Does it accord with 
the fitness of things?" " Is it honorable, as men 
in the common plane of life judge things to be 



190 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



honorable ? " " Is it generous ? " " Is it manly ? " 
"Is it square?" I am anxious that they shall 
answer this question also : " Wherein are we differ- 
entiated from the Roman soldiers? " I am anxious 
that they shall see what Christ is in the world, and 
what He has done for them, and what they in 
all fairness owe Him. I want to bring them face 
to face with Christ for serious, straightforward 
thought, and for unequivocal final decision. I am 
seeking to make honest, whole-hearted followers 
of Jesus Christ. I am seeking for enthusiasm, 
faith, love, entire surrender; and I am seeking 
these for One who has earned them, and who has 
a right to them from every soul that lives in Chris- 
tendom. 

If I am at all to succeed in my aim, the first 
thing I must do is this : enunciate without reserve 
this fact, viz. : 

All who live in Christendom have to deal with 
Christ ; whether they will or no, they pronounce 
upon Him pro or con. 

My fellow-men, we are like the people who 
were around the literal cross of Christ on the literal 
Calvary. There is no escape for us ; we are bound 
either to crown Christ or to crucify Christ. If we 
do not the one, we do the other. 

I am asked : " But would Jesus Christ be cruci- 
fied over again by the men who once crucified 
Him? — i.e., if they were now living, and if He 
appeared in this year A.D. ? " If not, it would be 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



191 



owing to the influences which He has left, and 
which have been enlightening the world. It would 
be a burning shame if He were. The cross to-day, 
with Christ nailed to it by human hands, would be 
a greater crime than the cross on Calvary in the 
beginning of the Christian era. But I refuse to 
answer this question further. It is designed to 
switch me off from the point which I have in hand, 
and which I am pressing upon your hearts for rec- 
ognition. The point I am pressing is : We who 
live in Christendom to-day have to deal with 
Christ personally, and we are morally identified in 
spirit with the men who dealt with Him in the 
past. It signifies nothing what those men would 
do to-day were they now living; we know what 
they did at Calvary. The nineteenth century is 
only the echo of the first century. What does 
signify is this : What are we doing with Christ ? 
The different characters around the cross are all 
duplicated and live on. Christ is nailed to the 
cross to-day. Some nail Him to the cross of crit- 
icism, and crucify Him on the literary cross. Some 
nail Him to the cross of neglect; some nail Him 
to the cross of indifference ; some nail Him to the 
cross of rejection ; some nail Him to the cross of 
downright unbelief. Does it make any difference 
what cross you nail Him to ? Nail Him to any 
cross, and it is crucifixion, and crucifixion in any 
form is a treatment Jesus Christ does not deserve 
at your hands. 



192 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



We are something and somebody with regard 
to Christ. This is the point with which we start 
out. There are some people who would like to 
get rid of Christ, and they act as though they had 
gotten rid of Him. But have they? No, and 
they cannot get rid of Him. We have got to take 
our stand. We are the Roman soldiers, or the 
deserting disciples, or John standing at the cross 
full of love, or Mary looking upon the scenes of 
suffering with a broken heart, or the scribes and 
Pharisees and rulers mocking and jeering. We 
are something and somebody with regard to Christ. 

Here is a man who says, " I am free from Christ. 
I have no relations with Him whatever. I have 
nothing to do with Him pro or con. 'I am an 
agnostic ; a know-nothing. I say nothing about 
the great questions of God and of immortality 
and of religion and of morals. These religious 
matters are as the politics of the moon to me. I 
am busy with the things of this life, the things 
present and near. I have enough to do to secure 
for myself moderate success and happiness ; and 
if I have spare energy there are present evils 
enough to engage my attention without troubling 
myself about such unknown and unknowable 
objects as God and the soul. Concerning these 
things I affirm nothing, and I deny nothing." 
Well, that is your creed; and with your creed 
to-day you stand face to face with Jesus Christ, 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



193 



and what does Christ say to you? Christ says 
to you, " O agnostic, I know something about 
these matters. I believe in God and in the soul 
and in immortality, and My character and My 
life come out of My faith in these things." Do 
you not see that your creed is the very opposite 
of Christ's creed, and that in it you condemn 
Christ's creed, and pronounce judgment upon 
Christ Himself? By your creed you say in so 
many words, " Either Christ is a deceiver, or else 
He is Himself self-deceived." Agnostic, if you 
are right, Jesus Christ is wrong. Your agnosti- 
cism, for which you claim such neutrality, keeps 
Him out of your life, and bolts the door of your 
heart in His face. Your agnosticism is not one 
whit better than downright and outright unbelief. 
It bars the door of your nature against Christ. He 
who bars the door of his nature and life against 
Christ rejects Christ, denies Christ, crucifies Christ. 
It is impossible for us to get away from the words 
of Christ Himself on this matter : "He that is not 
for Me is against Me." 

But why should we wish to get away from 
Christ? Or why should we seek escape from 
decision with regard to Him ? He is God's best 
gift to the world, and loyal alliance with Him is 
the highest destiny that any man can reach. 

Let us spend the rest of our time in looking at 
Jesus and at the blessings which He is constantly 



194 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



scattering around us, and which we are appropri- 
ating and using even while we are refusing to do 
our full duty to Him ! 

i. Christ Jesus Himself, His simple existence, 
is the first blessing which I ask you to think about. 

There are men whose very being is a blessing 
to the community. They are like a beautiful 
woman whose beauty is all the argument she 
needs for existing. What they are in themselves 
is an inspiration and an uplift. Christ stands at 
the head of this class. He walked our earth as 
a perfect man. He brought into the midst of 
humanity a perfect ideal ; and what is more, He 
embodied that perfect ideal in a complete and fully 
rounded perfect life. It is something to have 
some one do that. It is something to have some 
one beyond and above us, showing us the grand 
possibilities of human nature, and calling us up- 
ward and on. The powerful manhood of Christ, 
the transparent sweetness and gentleness of His 
impulses and actions, have magnetized the human 
imagination and have kindled the loftiest aspirations 
toward His majestic symmetry. The Son of God 
blessed the world by simply becoming incarnate, 
by being what He was : so rich and so unchange- 
able and so disinterested in His love ; so pure and 
so holy and so unselfish in His desires ; so noble, 
so lofty, and so self-sacrificing in His aims ; so full 
of deeds that were absolutely God-like ; and so 
beautifully full and complete in His character. 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



195 



His bare existence, the fact that He was, gave the 
world of mankind such an uplifting vision of what 
men ought to be, and of what God wants them to 
be, that no power can ever quench the new-born 
ambition in the human race. It is impossible for 
the world ever to be the same as it was before 
Jesus Christ came. Now, there is not a soul in 
Christendom to-day but knows of the existence oi 
Jesus Christ — who He was, and what He was ; 
there is no soul in Christendom that has not 
touched Him in history, and that has not received 
from that touch a vision, a new life, which will 
never allow the soul to be contented with the low 
plane in which it was before it touched Christ and 
caught a glimpse through Christ of what it is pos- 
sible for human nature to become. My point is 
this : My fellow-men, give Jesus Christ all that it 
is possible for you to give Him, do for Him all 
that it is possible for you to do for Him, and you 
never can repay Him for the results that have 
come to you through that touch. This blessing of 
which we speak, viz., coming into intellectual con- 
tact with Christ, is a blessing given to all who live 
in Christendom and who do nothing more than 
read the story of the Christ; but it is a blessing 
beyond the power of our ability to repay. 

2. / ask you to think about a second blessing, 
viz., the knowledge which Christ brought with 
Him into the world — a knowledge which no other 
one could or did bring. 





196 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



We forget what we owe Jesus by way of knowl- 
edge. We forget how He feeds the inner and 
better man. We forget how He gives us true 
and high views of God. To magnify the value of 
Jesus in this regard, God gave the world a chance 
to do its best before He sent His son. He gave 
the human race four thousand years to demonstrate 
that it had no need of Jesus Christ, that it could 
climb to spiritual heights alone. He gave men 
four thousand years to prove that human nature 
was enough and sufficient in itself to work out the 
highest wisdom, to find out God, to build the 
institutions mankind needed, to get man into right 
relationships with his fellow-man, to crush all evil 
out of existence, to develop the human heart, and 
to inaugurate the reign of universal love. Were 
not four thousand years sufficient? If not, how 
much time would you ask ? Four thousand years 
were amply sufficient; they were far more than 
enough for human nature to work out all its pos- 
sibilities and leave absolutely nothing for Christ to 
do when He came — i.e., if human nature in itself 
were sufficient without Christ. 

No brighter eras of mere human, uninspired, 
intellectual achievements have since appeared than 
the ages of Pericles and Augustus. The lays of 
Homer and of Virgil ; the orations of Demos- 
thenes and of Cicero ; the histories of Thucydides 
and of Tacitus; the Parthenon, the Venus de 
Medici, and the Apollo Belvidere — these are all 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



197 



ideal types in literature and in art. " Yet the world 
by wisdom knew not God." The beautiful was 
there in the past, but it lacked the good and the 
true. The regalement of the life of sense was all 
and in all in the civilization before Christ. There 
was no provision for the wants of the inner man. 
There was no emphasis of the fatherhood of God. 
There was no dogmatic, unequivocal assertion of 
the immortality of the soul. There was no enun- 
ciation or embodiment in the affairs of life of the 
grand universal brotherhood of man. By the way 
of a god there was nothing better than Jupi- 
ter. Man was not treated in a way worthy of his 
divine sonship. It was Jesus Christ who created 
enthusiasm for humanity. It was Jesus Christ who 
discovered and proclaimed the worth of the indi- 
vidual. It was He who taught that each man is 
a son of God and should be treated according to 
this high view. He should not be a slave in any 
form. He should be a free man. It is from Christ 
that we learn to see the value of man, and to pity 
the needs of man, and to comfort the sorrows of 
man, and to feel the brotherhood of the race. He 
lived for man, taught man, and died for man. 

The complete knowledge which Jesus brought 
with Him — whence was it? Whence? We know 
how we acquire knowledge. We painfully pick it 
up amid what survives of the past. Babylonian 
bricks, Sinaitic rocks, Assyrian remains, contribute 
slowly, under torture, to add to our stock of knowl- 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



edge. But whence had this man wisdom ? Nine- 
teen hundred years after His ascension, the world 
knows no religious thought that was not embraced 
in what He taught. We ransack the great relig- 
ions which have a history and a literature, and dis- 
cover not a single addition to the world's stock of 
religious thought since the close of the revelation 
of Jesus Christ. With all the discoveries of the 
modern centuries we have not been able to find 
a substitute for, or to supplant the teachings of, 
the New Testament. In every point of morals, as 
in every phase of theology, Christ is the world's 
master. " He has beggared the past and bank- 
rupted the future." 

Do you not see how He has blessed us in all 
this ? In giving us the true He has blessed us by 
saving us from the false and imperfect. By giving 
us Himself He has saved us from Zoroaster and 
Confucius and Buddha and Mohammed. Who 
would have these men rule and reign in America? 
Who wants to believe in their prescribed life and 
in the heaven which they teach shall follow it? 
Who wants the civilization which they produce? 
There is not a man here to-day who does not find 
his protection from these in Jesus Christ. Even 
those of you who have not yet owned Christ and 
acknowledged His claims upon you are blessed by 
Christ in this regard. The greatness of the bless- 
ing which you thus receive is to be measured by 
the difference between native China and native 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



199 



India and native Persia and native Turkey, and 
Christian America with its laws and liberties. 

3. The third blessing which I ask you to think 
about is great Christendom. The gift of Christ to 
the world is Christendom. 

That I may not double the track which is so 
often followed in treating this point, let me enu- 
merate at this time some features of Christendom 
not usually named or considered. 

Among the distinguishing characteristics of 
Christendom is the Anglo-Saxon race and its 
achievements. We are Anglo-Saxons, and we 
are proud of it. But who made our race what it 
is, and who blessed it with the blessings which we 
enjoy ? Before Christ found our fathers, the people 
of the Anglo-Saxon race were a set of heathen. 
There was a time when the Angles were sold 
under the hammer in the slave-marts of Britain. 
We talk of this race as the dominant race, the 
master race of the world. We tell of its achieve- 
ments in England and in Germany and in America ; 
and these are marvelous as compared with the 
achievements of other races. We predict for 
it a glowing future in numbers, in civilization, 
in religion, in discoveries and inventions, in 
the progress of freedom, and in the rule and 
supremacy of ideas. No doubt this future will be 
realized in a large degree; but it will be realized 
because of the largeness of Christ's identification 
with the Anglo-Saxon race. It is a race full of 



2O0 



OUR BBS 'T MOODS. 



Christ. It is a race penetrated and interpene- 
trated with the ideas of Christianity, and with the 
social forces of Christianity, and with the ethical 
results of Christianity. The race is one of Christ's 
historic miracles — a very incarnation of Christ in 
civilization. You know that England was not re- 
claimed from barbarism until the conversion of her 
Saxon conquerors in the sixth century to Chris- 
tianity. When by the preaching of the Word the 
fierce tribes of Hengist and Horsa were persuaded 
to exchange their dark idol-prayers and their 
hoarse battle-cry for the hallelujahs of the Christian 
worship — then, and only then, did the " Sceptered 
Isle " enter upon that career which made it what 
it is to-day. 

If there is such a thing as " a natural law of 
historic progress," and if that is all-sufficient as an 
explanation of the progress of civilization, as such 
writers as Hegel and Comte and Buckle contend, 
how shall we solve the problem of the present con- 
dition of China and Hindustan when we compare 
them with Britain and Germany? In China and 
Hindustan letters and philosophy flourished in the 
remote ages when the cruel rites of Druidism were 
practiced in Britain, and when the savage tribes 
who inhabited Germany worshiped Odin and Thor. 
To what can we refer the present differences be- 
tween these countries ? To what but to the influ- 
ence of Christ ? To Christ absent from the former ; 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



20I 



to Christ present with the latter. There is not a 
worshiper in the Christian temple to-day but en- 
joys the blessings which come through the proud 
Anglo-Saxon race. Are you ready to acknowl- 
edge in God's way the origin of these blessings 
which you appropriate? Are you willing to do 
your duty by Christ, and help keep the Anglo- 
Saxon race in living and loyal union with the only 
source of its blessings? 

4. / would mention just here another blessing 
which pertains to us as inhabitants of Christendom. 
It is this : the grand humanities which character- 
ize our age. 

But I am asked, What is your proof that these 
pertain to Christ ? I answer, This is my proof : 
these did not exist before Christ. Search the 
Byzantine chronicles and the pages of Publius 
Victor, and though the one describes all the public 
edifices of ancient Constantinople, and the other 
those of ancient Rome, not a word is to be found 
in either of a charitable institution. Search the 
ancient marbles in the museums of the world, de- 
scend and ransack the graves of Herculaneum and 
Pompeii, question the travelers who have visited 
the ruins of the cities of Greece and Rome, and in 
vain will you seek for the report of a single public 
institution of mercy built and supported for the 
alleviation of human want and misery. These 
things in the life of mankind and in the history of 



202 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



the world follow the cross of Jesus Christ. Yet 
there are men by the thousands who fill these in- 
stitutions and crucify Christ. 

" But do we not find to-day, and in America, 
humanities pushed and supported by those who 
refuse allegiance to Christ? " That is a fair ques- 
tion. And I answer it fairly. Yes, a few; a 
very few. "How, then, do you explain these?" 
Where these exist with any vitality, I give the 
credit of them to Christ. I do so because they 
are pushed and supported in Christian America. 
I recognize some people to be for Christ who be- 
lieve themselves to be against Him. They have 
more Christianity than they suppose. Christianity 
is in the atmosphere, and they breathe it uncon- 
sciously. Often those who boast most loudly of 
their independence of our Lord owe the whole for- 
mation of their life and character to His influence. 
They read the Bible in their youth and absorbed 
its precepts, and now, later in life, they forget 
their indebtedness. They are living in the after- 
glow of Christian sentiment. Let these go out of 
America, out from the sunlight of Christendom, 
and set up their claims and push their humanities 
and endeavor to bless nations where there are no 
humanities, and they will see just how long their 
humanities will last. But I must not waste time 
with these. At best they are only an invisible 
drop in the bucket. 

My friend, who is at the head of the city mis- 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



203 



sion work of New York, told me that he once met 
some people of this order, and he put them and 
their boasting to a practical test by giving them 
city mission work to do. But the result was they 
proved to be all sentiment and nothing else, and 
soon evaporated from the field. They were cult- 
ured in liberal thinking. They were ethical and 
aesthetic and what not. The blood of Christ! 
Oh, they could not bear to talk of such a thing. 
The deity of Christ! That, of course, was a 
myth. Christ was a good man — yes, that was it 
exactly. Like Cain, the first man who pooh- 
poohed at the sacrifice of blood, they fussed 
aesthetically around the altar and tastefully ar- 
ranged flowers and fruits there — i.e., they gave a 
sewing lesson on fancy work to a half-clad woman, 
and they tried to teach some poor girls popular 
airs; but of nursing the sick and of doing the real 
needed things demanded in a New York tene- 
ment they got heartily tired in a single week, and 
then petered out. I tell you that the real spirit of 
downright humanities is not in such people, boast 
as they may, and it is not in them because Jesus 
Christ in His fullness is not in them. Christ with 
His deity and Christ with His cross is not in them ; 
and no one who is minus the cross and minus the 
deity of Jesus Christ is able for any kind of endur- 
ing work which requires whole-hearted and con- 
tinuous self-sacrifice. 

5. / can only mention one additional blessing 



204 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



which comes to us from our accidental relations 
with Christendom. It is this : the men and women 
with zvJwm we associate and who enter into our 
friendships are largely Christian. 

There are no friendships like the friendships of 
our homes. Now, Christ made the ideal home of 
America. He set the value upon the child there, 
and He set the value upon woman there. Love in 
the home has its highest play only when Christ 
is living in the heart of husband and wife, father 
and mother, son and daughter, brother and sister. 
Christ is blessing you through your home to-day. 

What we say of our homes we may say of our 
business alliances. When the honor and integ- 
rity and consideration and truthfulness which are 
inculcated by Jesus Christ are in them, they are 
pleasant and enjoyable. The men whom we se- 
cretly admire in business, and with whom we de- 
light to do business, are the men who conduct 
business as nearly as possible upon the principles 
which are known to be Christian. 

My fellow-men, Christ Jesus is meeting us on 
all hands, and dealing with us, and influencing us, 
and molding us, by means of and through our 
Christian friends, the men and women in whom 
He dwells and through whom He finds a constant 
outlet. Through them there come to us day after 
day gracious and strong and inspiring exhibitions 
of the love and truth of Christ. They are Christ 
reborn and living again among us. In them God 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



205 



is felt and admired and loved. They have so 
united their lives with Christ that it is no longer 
they who live, but Christ who lives in them. They 
are gateways to Christ, and in them we are dealing 
with all that is lovely and grand in Christ, even 
when we wist not. They are Christ's living epis- 
tles. Contact with them is touching the hem of 
Christ's garment, and we receive by the contact 
healing and purifying virtue. 

In looking at what we receive by absorption 
through our daily contact with Christian men and 
women, I can understand the answer which an 
eminent American woman gave to one who asked 
her the question, " What was the most influential 
sight you saw in Europe when there ? " Her reply 
was, "Lucretia Mott." She had met Lucretia 
Mott, another American woman, and she had heard 
her plead the cause of those who were in chains, 
and she had felt the power of her great Christ soul. 
Lucretia Mott had done more to mold her life than 
all the galleries and cathedrals and mountains and 
cities of Europe combined. My fellow-men, it is 
in our friendships with the Christians about us that 
we find an outlet for our better nature and a sup- 
port for our higher life. It is these friends who 
interpret Christ to us, and make real and tangible 
His ideals, and in them Christ is most potent. In 
them we have the truth personified, living, walk- 
ing, speaking, loving. They are proofs of the 
reality of God and of Christ, and of the adaptabil- 



206 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



ity of the Christian religion to all the spheres of 
our life. There is not one of us but is blest in a 
hundred ways by the lives and the loves and the 
principles and the examples of Christian men and 
women who are Christ's representatives on earth. 
The question is, Are you willing to acknowledge 
your indebtedness to Christ for these men and 
women by means of whom Christ is blessing you ? 
When Christ Jesus looks down from the cross, in 
what attitude does He see you? Does He be- 
hold you appropriating His robes while you are 
crucifying Him? You should seek to be worthy 
of wearing the Master's garments. I do not blame 
you for taking ' the blessings of Christ ; but I do 
blame you for refusing to identify yourself with 
Christ your benefactor, and giving Him and His 
cause in return the whole power of your life and 
personality. 

The duty which I have now to press home upon 
you is the duty of gratitude. For the blessings 
which you receive from Christ you owe Him the 
payment of a debt of gratitude. And no one 
is exempt, for there is not a soul in Christen- 
dom that is unblessed of Christ. It is our duty 
not only not to crucify Him, but it is our duty to 
crown Him. We crown Washington ; we crown 
Jefferson; we crown Lincoln; why not Christ? 

I have seen the members of a family lovingly 
and daily care for the old canary, which was blind 
and paralyzed and voiceless and featherless and 



CRUCIFYING CHRIST. 



207 



songless. Why? Because it had once filled the 
home with music and had made the air vibrate 
with its warbling trills. The treatment given the 
old bird was only common decency. Why not 
treat Christ with decency? You wear the robes 
of His blessing : honor Him for these ; serve Him 
in return for these ; show your gratitude for these. 
Away with your poverty of conception concerning 
Jesus Christ ; bring into your souls this very day 
the fullness of knowledge. Learn who He is, and 
what He has done, and what He stands ready to 
do. We owe Him the Christian atmosphere which 
we all breathe. Every garment of civilization 
worth wearing belongs to Him. While we take 
the garments let us take the Christ also. In the 
matter of blessing He is the great unknown quan- 
tity of the future. He still has as His reserve the 
twelve legions. You need Him and His fullness. 
Take Him, and publicly credit Him for all you 
receive from Him. 



IX. 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD TO BE CARRIED 
INTO MATURE LIFE. 



IX. 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD TO BE CAR- 
RIED* INTO MATURE LIFE. 

"And Jesus called a little child zinto Him, and set him in the 
midst of them, and said, Verily I say tmto you, Except ye be con- 
verted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the king- 
dom of heaven." — Matthew 18 : 2, 3. 

THERE is nothing in my text that stands in the 
way of growth. Growth is the law of all living 
and healthful being. Life and growth, strength 
and growth, are forever inseparable. There is one 
thing that is an utter impossibility in this universe, 
and that is a vigorous, robust life at a standstill. 

There is nothing in my text, when rightly inter- 
preted, that contradicts other utterances of Script- 
ure which require a fully developed manhood and 
womanhood. The text does not clash with the 
Excelsior which God has implanted in every human 
heart. It does not conflict with Paul's utterance 
in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, 
where he says : " When I was a child, I spake as 
a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a 
child : but when I became a man, I put away 
211 



212 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



childish things." It does not war with the ideal 
which Paul sets before us in the fourth chapter of 
Ephesians, where he says : " We must all grow till 
we come in the unity of the faith, and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ." Christianity will always have its ideals, 
and these will always be in advance of man, and 
will always act as a heavenly voice calling man on 
and up. When Christianity ceases to lead human- 
ity, it will die, and it should die. My text argues 
simply that the best of childhood be carried into 
manhood ; just as in nature that which is essential 
in the blossom is carried forward and embodied in 
the fruit. 

Childhood as enjoined in the text is a quality 
rather than a condition; a quality rather than a 
stage of life. Childhood as a quality can grow 
and develop into a stalwart manhood and into a 
magnificent womanhood ; but childhood as a con- 
dition, childhood as a stage of life, must always 
remain a childhood with its limitations. It is not 
the will of God that childhood as a condition shall 
remain. It is His decree that the infant shall 
remain an infant only for a very little time. He 
has given this commission to all the laws that 
govern human life, viz. : "O ye laws that gov- 
ern human life, and that operate to fulfill My 
will, see to it that the little girl with the flowing 
ringlets shall be a wayfarer in the home only for 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 



213 



the night ; start her in the morning on her jour- 
ney toward womanhood. And see to it also that 
the sunny little boy in the home shall keep her 
company, pressing on his way toward manhood." 
There is nothing so magnetic or so influential in 
the home as a babe, and sometimes we feel like 
keeping it a babe always. But that is not the will 
of God. The baby says such pretty things, and 
has such cunning ways, and the touch of its little 
hand is so soft, and the sound of its little voice is 
so sweet, and its little face with dimpled cheeks 
and curling lips is so full of beauty, and there is 
such a charm in its tiny fingers and in its little 
round arms and in its little pink feet without a line 
of world's wear, and it is so graceful and charming 
in all its* movements, that the whole family goes 
baby-mad and votes unanimously that the babe 
shall always be a babe. But such is not the will 
of God. With God there is no legitimate ulti- 
matum this side of perfect manhood and perfect 
womanhood. Each child comes into the world 
charged with a manifold life, gifted and dowered 
with faculties and forces and sublime possibilities, 
and these faculties and forces must be used and 
enlarged, and these possibilities must be reached. 

Let me particularize. We would not have our 
children remain stationary in knowledge, neither 
would we remain stationary ourselves. We would 
grow and have them grow in all knowledge, but es- 
pecially in the knowledge of God. Paul, who com- 



214 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



mands us in these words, " Brethren, be children in 
malice," in the very same verse, and with the very- 
same dip of the pen, writes, " But in understanding 
be men." That is precisely what we feel, and 
that is exactly the way we would word our feel- 
ing. There is a vast growth of knowledge possible 
to us the moment we come into this life, and it is 
our ambition to enter upon this growth. Espe- 
cially should we wish to grow in our knowledge of 
God. The deepest cry of our soul should be this : 
"We would know more of God." Even with the 
most advanced Christian there is large desire for 
growth in the God-knowledge. 

Hear a parable. A living infant in the arms of 
its dead mother was rescued from a raft which 
drifted ashore after the wrecking of a ship. Its 
father was supposed to have gone down with the 
ship. The infant grew into a lad, and the lad 
grew into a man, because of the care of the kind- 
hearted strangers who rescued him. As his facul- 
ties matured, he began to notice that other boys 
had fathers, and reasoned himself into the belief 
that he too had a father. Then he was told that 
his father had perished in the wreck. When he 
grew larger he longed to have a more definite 
conception of his father whom he had never seen. 
Very naturally he concluded that by heredity some 
likeness of his father was in himself. And so, 
standing before the mirror, he conceived and de- 
fined to himself his father's appearance from his 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 



215 



own image in the glass. These were his words : 
" Like me, he was five feet and ten inches in 
height, slight, with dark-brown hair, gray eyes, 
solitary in his habits, and given to abstract think- 
ing and imagining." His conceptions were partly 
correct and partly erroneous. 

Like this orphan, we are striving after a true 
and a large knowledge of God. But we are seeing 
in or through a glass darkly. We reason from 
ourselves up to God. We fasten our attention on 
the highest and best in us, and we say, " God is 
like the best in us." We have had our child- 
knowledge of Him, and we have broadened this 
knowledge from a child-knowledge into a man- 
knowledge. But still we need to grow in our 
ideas. It would never do for us to stay station- 
ary where we are. Our conceptions of God, even 
though skillfully built up, are only partly correct. 

But hear the conclusion of the parable. The 
young man's father was not drowned. While the 
raft drifted ashore bearing his dead wife and his 
living son, he drifted out to sea clinging to a spar. 
After many hours he was picked up by a passing 
vessel. Believing that his wife and child had per- 
ished, he wandered over the earth and the ocean 
a desolate and sorrowing man. One day, on the 
street of a certain city, he saw a face that so much 
resembled that of his long-lost wife that he was 
compelled to speak. The result was the discovery 
that he was face to face with his long- lost and 



216 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



long- mourned son. When all was explained the 
son began to see how much of error there was in 
the conception he had formed of his father while 
viewing himself in the mirror. He had pictured 
to himself a slight man, five feet ten, dark hair, 
gray eyes ; but he saw in his father a sea-captain, 
who was a Swede with the blood of the Norsemen 
in his veins. His father was a giant in stature, 
with flaxen hair and blue eyes, and a skin which 
had been lily-white before the spray of salt waves 
and rude ocean winds and tropical sun had browned 
it. One day he said to his father, " Father, I used 
to look at myself in the mirror, and picture you 
such as I was. In many points I was wrong, but 
I glory in my disappointment. You are in every . 
way grander than was my thought of you." 

Like this young man's knowledge of his father, 
our knowledge of God is partial. It needs cor- 
rection. It needs growth. It needs broadening. 
It needs the enlargement which experience can 
give it. It needs the correction which the teach- 
ing of the inspired Book can give it. It needs the 
additions which come from the comparison of our 
views with the views of the men and women who 
love God and seek after God. It needs more than 
all this; for all this is only seeing God through 
a glass darkly. 7/ needs the open vision of God 
Himself which God will give us when we pass 
into the eternal world and see Him face to face, 
It needs the tuition of heaven. In point of knowl- 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 



217 



edge there is a vast difference between the child 
starting in life and the full matured man studying 
God in the light of heaven. Which would you 
rather be, the child or the man ? 

The man only is God's ultimatum. He says 
unto us, " Be men," and the text does not stand 
in the way of His command. Nay, rather it opens 
before us the only way whereby we can reach the 
full manhood of knowledge. The text binds us to 
childhood only as a quality, and not to childhood 
as a period of time. It binds us to childlikeness, 
not to childishness. Childhood as a quality in- 
cludes teachableness; now teachableness is es- 
sential to the acquisition of knowledge. Teach- 
ableness is the prophecy and promise of full-orbed 
knowledge. 

While we strive to grasp the fact that there are 
some things in childhood which should forever 
remain with us, we are particular to assert that 
there are some things which we should outgrow 
and forever drop. All that is in childhood should 
not be carried forward. In order to a true man- 
hood and womanhood it is as essential to drop 
some things as it is to carry other things, and 
unless we drop the things which should be 
dropped, we cannot carry the things which should 
be carried. 

I will illustrate and give examples. Passion 
must give way to principle ; appetite must give 
way to reason ; imagination acting without calcu- 



2l8 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



lation must give way to prudence ; impulse must 
put itself under conscience ; rashness must ex- 
change places with caution ; timidity and indeci- 
sion must allow themselves to be supplanted by 
self-control and firmness. There must be earnest, 
serious thought, and large forecast, and a well- 
stored mind, and an enlightened conscience, and 
deep convictions, and the courage to stand by our 
principles at all hazard. True manhood and true 
womanhood have virtues that are all their own, 
and it should be our aim to reach these. But how 
are these to be reached? Only by the way the 
text points out : by passing through a true child- 
hood, and by carrying into our manhood the best 
elements of that true childhood. 

I want to set before your mind just here this fact, 
viz. : it is Christianity that honors childhood and 
points out its worth and value. It is Christ who 
proclaims that the child- heart is the door into the 
kingdom of heaven, and discovers the elements in 
childhood which should be present in the highest 
manhood. It is Jesus who lifts the little child into 
a grand type. He says to the world, " Dwell not 
on the trouble-and-care side of children — their 
thoughtlessness, which vexes, their constant need 
of attention, which wears; pass over to the other 
side and see them in the light of the land from 
which they came, and to which they can by God's 
grace lead back." 

Look at the glory in their faces ! See in them 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 21Q 

the characteristics which woo and win human 
hearts, and which command and bless the human 
race ! They carry in them the greatest amount 
of heavenliness possessed by mortals. It is as 
Wordsworth says: 

" Heaven lies all around us in our infancy." 

Or, to use Matthew Arnold's words, " Children 
testify of a divine home felt, and fading away as 
life proceeds." Whose heart has infancy ever 
injured? Into the tissue of whose life has it not 
with its pure hand woven some golden thread, 
some ray of joy, some heavenly tie ? Everywhere 
it refines and strengthens the chain of human sym- 
pathy. A great writer has said, " Every Christian 
grace displays itself at some period in the infant of 
but a single year — faith and humility and truth 
and love." Is that saying true? If so, it pre- 
sents a wonderful fact; for the graces named in 
the saying, when tried and harmonized and ma- 
tured, are the beautiful elements which compose 
the character of the perfect man. I am inclined 
to accept the saying, and I am inclined to accept 
it because it accords with the teaching of Christ 
when He lifts a little child in His arms and places 
it in the midst of His disciples, saying, " Mark, O 
My disciples, the infinite simplicity of the child's 
trusting and loving heart; for it is a revelation of 
the Spirit of the kingdom of heaven." 

The child whom Christ makes a grand type is 



220 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



not the child that has been vitiated and corrupted 
by contact with bad men. It does not belong, of 
course, to the boys in your block. For what block 
is there that has not the very worst boys of the 
city ? Its childhood is not the childhood in which 
is developed the old Adam or the young Cain. 
The childhood which Christ uses as a type is a 
holy childhood, and a holy childhood in its holiest 
mood, a childhood pure and simple, a childhood 
before it is touched by the world's artificiality, a 
childhood that is natural. When He says, " Be- 
come as a little child," He means us to become like 
a child that loves, and that rejoices in being loved ; 
that is truthful arid trustful ; that shows itself as it 
is, and that counts upon others to be what they 
appear. It was in the spontaneous life of such a 
child that the holy eye, which sees lessons in the 
lilies and in the grasses and in the sparrows and in 
the clouds, saw types and models for His disciples. 

I wish to dwell upon the fact that Christianity 
deals with childhood, and lifts the true child into 
a grand typology, and exalts childhood, and pro- 
tects childhood, and honors childhood, and discerns 
in the essential attributes of childhood the elements 
of genuine and lasting greatness. Christianity is 
the symbol of advancement. It is the latest and 
highest progress of the world. Now what does 
the latest progress of the world's civilization do? 
It sets forth ideal childhood as the embodiment of 
goodness, and proclaims that goodness is greatness. 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 221 



In this, Christian civilization is differentiated from 
the civilizations that precede it. Goodness has 
not always been considered greatness. 

When the Magi of the East sought the King of 
Greatness they were taken to a little holy Child. 
But the world through all the ages prior to that 
had been going away from the Child. The world's 
notion of greatness lay in the opposite pole. 

As we review the history of the world we see it 
dividing itself into three stages. In the first stage 
power is magnified, force is deified. The great 
man is the strong man. In that era Nimrod is the 
hero after the world's heart. Strength receives 
the homage of the many. In the second stage 
power is pushed a step or two into the background, 
and intellect comes to the front. The great man 
is the intellectual man. In that era Homer is the 
favored idol before whom the populace delights 
to bow. Genius receives the homage of men. 
Christianity has inaugurated the third stage. In 
this era the world is pointed, not to Nimrod, not 
to Homer, but to the Child-Christ. Not to pow- 
er, not to genius, but to goodness. The great man 
of the future will be the good man of the future. 
" Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the 
earth." " Except ye be converted and become 
like little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of 
heaven." The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom 
of greatness. 

What seems strange, these three stages of the 



222 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



world's history which I have mentioned are paral- 
leled in the individual experience of man, as man 
admires the forces operating in the world. What 
causes the heart of the boy to respond in admi- 
ration? David slaying Goliath — power. Caesar 
leading the Tenth Legion — power. Napoleon at 
the head of the Old Guard — power. Let the boy 
pass to young manhood. What causes his heart 
to respond in admiration while in the midst of 
young manhood ? Shakespeare creating his won- 
derful characters — genius. Goethe throwing off 
the products of his facile pen — genius. Macaulay 
writing his world-renowned history — genius. Let 
the young man reach his full maturity, when he is 
able to weigh and analyze and judge after the 
highest and the most approved standards. What 
calls out admiration from the heart of the mature 
man? John Howard at work among the prisons 
practicing the doctrine of humaneness — goodness. 
Livingstone struggling in the thickets of the Dark 
Continent for the elevation of Africa — goodness. 
Abraham Lincoln writing the Emancipation Proc- 
lamation — goodness. Under the Christian dispen- 
sation we are taught to admire character, and 
genuine character has in it all the gentle graces of 
childhood. 

The ethics of Christianity, when they were first 
proclaimed, fairly startled the world with their new 
doctrine, that to develop the grandest manhood 
men must become as little children. Other systems 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 



223 



of ethics gave, as models of the finest manhood, 
stoical firmness, bold indifference to circumstances, 
and the rougher and sterner virtues. With them 
the complete elimination of the child meant man- 
hood. They never dreamed that the recognition 
of childhood was the best thermometer of the 
world's progress. 

It is remarkable that the literature of the Dark 
Ages presents no model childhood. But see how 
troops of beautiful children crowd literature since 
the Dark Ages. It is the glory of Christianity's 
Book that the child is in it: — the little maid mis- 
sionary in a foreign land pointing Naaman to the 
only source of healing in all the wide world ; the 
boy-priest Samuel serving in the Tabernacle ; the 
merchant lad with his two fishes and five barley 
loaves, in the exercise of a fine enterprise, selling 
out his entire stock on the spot ; little Timothy, a 
small epitome of a man, at the knee of his mother 
and grandmother, drinking in Bible stories; the 
children in the Temple singing their hosannahs to 
the Son of David. These are the glory of Chris- 
tianity's Book, and these show the high estimate 
which Christianity puts upon childhood. 

I am anxious above all things that Christianity 
shall get its full credit for what it has done for 
childhood, and for the way it has blessed the world 
at large through its appreciation of the child. 

You know how the child was treated before the 
days of Christ, In Sparta, and in some of the 



224 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Greek cities, in Rome, and among many savage 
tribes, it was the custom to destroy small and un- 
healthy children as soon as they were born. Chris- 
tianity puts an end to that. It protects the feeblest 
human life by righteous legislation. Christianity 
weighs the child's soul. It honors its body, no 
matter how weak or defective it may be, because 
of the soul. How many men with giant minds 
and great hearts would have been lost to the world 
during the Christian era if the ancient ethics of 
Greece and Rome had prevailed! Byron was 
born with a club-foot ; Spinoza was weak ; Samuel 
Johnson was disfigured; Sir Isaac Newton was so 
small that he could have been put into a quart 
measure ; Goethe and Victor Hugo were so weak 
that they were not expected to live; Charles 
Sumner weighed but three pounds and a half; 
Descartes, Gibbon, Kepler, Lord Nelson, Christo- 
pher Wren, James Watt, John Howard, Washing- 
ton Irving, Wilberforce, and others of equal great- 
ness, were all characterized by bodily weakness in 
infancy. Christianity came into the world and 
saved them from the fate that would have been 
theirs had they been born in the cities I have 
named, before the Christian era. They were saved 
because the voice of Jesus Christ had echoed round 
the world these merciful words concerning chil- 
' dren : " It is not the will of your heavenly Father 
that the least of these little ones should perish." 
But allow me to address myself to a practical 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 



225 



question, which is really the main question set 
before us by my topic. The question is: What 
things should we carry out of our childhood into 
our manhood and womanhood ? I mean to give 
the rest of my sermon to the answer of this 
question. 

1 . We should take into manhood and womanhood 
the inquiring mind. 

It is the characteristic of the child to ask ques- 
tions. That should be the characteristic of men and 
women. A question is a chariot in which the soul 
may ride into truth. It is better to ask questions 
than it is to dogmatize. I do not mean that it is 
better to ask the questions of the agnostic, but the 
questions of an honest seeker after truth. Ask 
questions as Job asked them. There is no book 
in the Bible in which the interrogation point is so 
used as in the Book of Job ; and no one, in dealing 
with the most difficult problems of life, ever came 
forth more grandly than Job did.. 

In asking questions, be children. I came across 
a little book last week which was given up wholly 
to keeping a record of " Questions Asked by Chil- 
dren." These were some of the questions that 
fell from little lips : A certain mother had made 
a disparaging remark about her neighbor. It 
chanced that the neighbor called that very day, 
and the smart infant of the Bay State put this 
question to its mother : " Mamma, is this the Mrs. 
B. you take no stock in?" A little boy, after a 



226 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



visit to his grandfather's, where there was always 
a blessing sought at meals, asked his father, " Papa, 
why don't you talk to your plate as grandpa talks 
to his every dinner-time?" The father under- 
stood the question and felt the rebuke. The 
questions in the book run from questions like these 
up to the most serious questions possible — ques- 
tions pertaining to God and heaven, and to death, 
and to the state after death. Like the child, fill 
life full of questions. But do not let faith die into 
cold questions or into colder indifferentism ; let 
your questions be questions that are burning-hot 
with a desire after true knowledge. While you 
are in the universe you are in your Father's house, 
and questions in your Father's house concerning 
God and His communications to men are no more 
out of place, and should no more interfere with 
your right relations to God, than the questions 
which your child asks in your home are out of 
place or interfere with its relation to you. Inter- 
rogate, then. Interrogate the rocks. Interrogate 
the stars. Interrogate the elements and forces in 
their mighty play. Study man. Study the Bible. 
Study God. " Prove all things." This will only 
exalt the power and love and faithfulness of God, 
who is back of all nature and who is in the Book. 
The grandest thing in this advanced nineteenth 
century of ours is the prevailing spirit of honest 
inquiry. 

2. We should carry into manhood and woman- 
hood the transparency and simplicity of childhood. 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 



22"] 



The artlessness and the openness of the child is 
refreshing. The child may be a little sinner, but 
he is a transparent little sinner, and his transpar- 
ency is an item that should be put to his credit. 
One illustration will be sufficient. An aunt was 
visiting the home of one of Brooklyn's little citi- 
zens, and she made herself welcome by bringing 
with her an ample supply of sweets. The mother 
of the lad came to feel that he made too many 
draughts upon the aunt's generosity, and forbade 
him asking for a single atom more. This prohi- 
bition was a barrier which must in some way be 
surmounted, and the little fellow most guilelessly 
betrayed a guileful plan of procedure by interpo- 
lating it in his recital of the Lord's Prayer. He 
rattled the prayer off with breathless haste : " Our 
Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy 
name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on 
earth as it is in heaven, and I'll just ask auntie for 
some candy for grandpa, and he will say, ' No, I 
thank thee,' and then I'll have it for myself; and 
forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors ; for I 
must go and ask her right away ; and lead us not 
into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine 
the kingdom, power, glory, and I am going right 
away. Amen." 

That was not right. No. But it was a great 
deal better than some of the plans which you carry 
out and subtilely concoct and cover up. If all sin 
were as transparent as that, it would be an easy 
matter to defeat sin. There is a great difference 



228 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



between the child-heart and the heart sophisticated 
by life. The latter is able to give a deadliness to 
evil. Deplore and guard against the influences 
that change the outspoken, artless child into the 
man who wears a mask and cultivates a silence 
that lies and deceives. The speech that is the 
sincerest in this world is that which is nearest to a 
prattling voice. Oh that we could see through 
our fellow-men ! Oh that their lives were so pure 
and holy and good-intentioned that they could 
afford to live in the sunshine and allow men to look 
them through and through! Oh that men were 
what they pretend to be ! Transparency ! Sin- 
cerity ! That is what mankind needs. 

3. We should carry with tis into our manhood 
and womanhood the sense of the goodness of exist- 
ence and the ability to enjoy life. 

Life is a real pleasure to a child. It lives as a 
striking contrast and as a rebuke in the midst of 
the men and women who have completely flattened 
out ; who spend their time pottering over triviali- 
ties, enjoying nothing and entering with heartiness 
into nothing ; who are tired of life and are prema- 
turely old because they have no mental resources 
to fall back upon. Take a child with his " Robin- 
son Crusoe " and "Arabian Nights," his bat and 
ball, his trumpet and drum, his fishing-rod and 
gun, his kite and top, and life is a real relish to 
him. Such a child is always facing the sun, so 
that his shadows of course fall behind him and out 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 



22Q 



of sight. His heart is care-free. He is confident 
of being cared for. He might distrust his father 
and mother and have grief on this account, but he 
does not. Such a child not only enjoys his play 
and his growth, but he enjoys his sleep. It is not 
more than a moment from " good-night, mamma," 
to " good-morning, mamma " ; and the new day al- 
ways blossoms out in original freshness and sparkle. 
We should guard this ability to enjoy things which 
God gives us in childhood. And it can be guarded. 
We should cultivate this sense of the goodness of 
life. And it can be cultivated. By putting the 
right things into life we can make life enjoyable — 
right principles, right theories, right pursuits, right 
relations with God and with our fellow-men. 
These things can give men and women more hap- 
piness than toys give children. This is what the 
experience of some men declare. Take Hans 
Christian Andersen, that man who wrote so 
many wonderful children's stories, and who kept 
himself all his life in fellowship with the little ones. 
He tells us that his life was as happy as a child's. 
His own words are : " My life is a living story, 
happy and full of incident. It says to the world 
and to me, ' There is a God, who directs all things 
for the best.' " 

4. We should take with us into our manhood and 
womanhood the large and beautiful faith-faculty 
of our childhood. 

There is nothing in the child that is grander 



230 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



than its faith. It goes through childhood believ- 
ing, and according to its faith so does it receive. 
By faith the little child sleeps on God's heart and 
is refreshed ; by faith it puts its hand into God's 
hand, and is led and upheld. Every day we see 
how the unquestioning faith of the child brings it 
that which it wants and seeks. It believes, and 
those around it honor its belief. In the history of 
< the fine arts we read that a little child on the 
streets of Florence watched for the coming of 
Michael Angelo, who was on his way to his studio. 
The child brought with it a large sheet of paper, 
for it intended to ask the artist to draw it a picture, 
and it firmly believed that he would. That was 
a bold faith. Angelo, the man who combined in 
one soul painter, sculptor, architect, and poet, was 
in the zenith of his glory. Popes had pleaded with 
him for the fruits of his genius, and kings had 
offered him vast sums for a single work of art. 
The child's faith in asking him for a picture was 
daring faith ; but it won the day. It went right 
to the heart of the artist. He could not dis- 
appoint such open and sincere trust and expec- 
tation. Sitting down on the side of the street, 
he drew a sketch there and then, such as no 
other hand in all the world could have produced. 
That was what the child expected and believed 
he would do. This incident teaches us that 
if we only exercised faith in our fellow-men, 
we could reach the heart of our fellow-men, and 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 23 1 

would receive from them the very best they have 
to give. Very few men have the heart to cheat 
or injure the man who implicitly trusts them. Our 
open dealing with men and our magnanimous trust 
in them can and will prove educational. It will 
lead to openness and trust in their dealing with us. 
One "open and trusting man will make a hundred 
other men such as he is. This freedom from sus- 
picion, this implicit trust of childhood, is what 
society needs. What a state of society it has the 
ability to inaugurate! I believe that a childlike 
faith in man has in it a power that can regenerate 
and purify human society. 

The faith of childhood must be exercised espe- 
cially in our dealing with God. We who are grown 
men and women want to learn to cradle ourselves 
in God. When we do this, then we shall find the 
truth of that beautiful promise, " Thou wilt keep 
him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
Thee." A noted Bible expositor uses Abraham 
as an illustration of the truth of this promise. 
Abraham with the faith of a little child nestled in 
the very heart of God, and so became the father 
of the faithful. He fed himself upon the divine 
life and love. God took him out one night and 
showed him all the visible hosts of heaven, and 
then said to this childless wanderer, " Even so 
shall thy seed be." What followed? Abraham, 
no longer the mighty chief and audacious explorer 
of unknown lands, no longer the owner of count- 



232 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



less flocks and riches of an Eastern kind, became 
as a little child. "Abraham believed God." The 
first time the word " believe " occurs in the Bible 
is in this instance: "Abraham believed God." He 
said to sight, " Stand back." He said to the laws 
of nature, " Hold your peace." He said to a mis- 
giving heart, "Silence, thou deceiving tempter." 
"Abraham believed God." How much there is in 
that word "believe" as in this instance it is first 
written! Abraham nestled in the heart of God, 
and nurtured and fed himself upon the divine 
vitality. Such is the meaning of the word " be- 
lieve." Abraham's faith was childlike. 

See the power of faith! It gives a man the 
sense of sonship. "To as many as believe, to 
them He gives the power to become the sons of 
God." And that is a wonderful privilege; for 
sonship carries in it the Father-idea. The Father- 
idea makes us feel that we are never alone. " I 
am not alone, for the Father is with Me." The 
idea of sonship which is always joined with the 
Father-idea places us on the side of things on 
which God is. If all this be true, then how much 
grows out of carrying the faith-faculty of childhood 
with us throughout our entire life ! 

I have no time further to particularize. I can 
only group what remains to be presented. We 
should carry with us into manhood and woman- 
hood childhood's sympathy, childhood's heart, 
childhood's love, childhood's hope, childhood's 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 



233 



aspirations, childhood's enterprise, childhood's en- 
thusiasm, and childhood's freshness. Let us be 
honest, and let us fear not to proclaim the unvar- 
nished truth. What is the unvarnished truth? 
The unvarnished truth is this, viz. : it is the spirit 
and the boldness and the out-push and on-push 
of youth that keeps the world agoing, and the 
church agoing, and the man agoing; therefore, if 
we are to be useful and be a help in the world, 
and not in the way, serving the world only by our 
funeral, our silver locks must often mingle with 
golden locks, and we must in middle life and in old 
age be young in heart, and young in hope, and 
young in our plans, and young in our enthusiasm. 

I have spoken large things ; I have enumerated 
large duties. I wish in closing to speak one word 
by way of encouragement. It is this : What I 
have urged has been realized by others. Lowell, 
in his essay on Emerson, says : " One secret of his 
greatness was, he tenaciously maintained himself 
in the outputs of his youth — i.e., he held on to the 
best of his boy- days." » 

Childhood has been carried into manhood. 
Mature lives have been filled with splendid 
sanguineness. Men have reached the highest 
dreams and ambitions of their boy- days. Moses 
is an illustration of this. His mother during his 
boyhood days gave him character and an inspira- 
tion and a patriotic plan, and put within him an 
impulse which he never forgot. She gave him a 



234 0UR BEST MOODS. 

mission as a boy to shake the very throne of the 
tyrannical Pharaoh, and when he became a man 
he shook that throne until he almost shattered it. 
The early dream of his life was that he might make 
a free nation out of God's covenant people, and in 
mature manhood he translated his dream from 
dream to glorious fact. In Moses, childhood 
marched on into manhood. 

But we have a brighter example even than 
Moses. It is Jesus Himself. I have spoken of 
the importance of carrying the faith-faculty of 
childhood into manhood. Jesus shows us that this 
can be done. He did it. Nothing shone out 
brighter in His life than His radiant faith in His 
Father. And this was the child-quality in Christ. 
Amid all His wisdom and truth and the exercise 
of His wonderful power, His faith shone. His 
faith began in childhood and continued to the very 
end. His faith was faith in God as a Father. 
The first recorded sentence that Jesus spoke called 
God His Father, and His last recorded sentence 
on the cross called God His Father. It was by 
the faith of His childhood that He offered Himself 
the sacrifice for sin upon the cross. " To be about 
His Father's business," that was the grandest thing 
in His childhood, and that He made the chief 
business of His manhood. In Him, as a Tree of 
Life, the blossom fruited. 

Just as our manhood tinges and colors our 
immortality, just as we carry over the line between 



THINGS OF CHILDHOOD. 235 



time and eternity our faith and our hope and our 
charity — three graces which Paul says are eternal 
and abide with us forever — in like manner we can 
here on earth see to it that the golden flush of 
childhood shall radiate through our maturity, and 
give beauty to our manly integrity and strength, 
and give permanency to our mature nobleness and 
power. Occupying a high position in the kingdom 
of heaven depends upon our seeing to this. 

The kingdom of heaven ! There is no greater 
motive power that can be brought to bear upon us 
as an inspiration to duty. The kingdom of heaven ! 
O my soul, when that is at stake thou must be 
true to it, and thou must be true also to thyself. 



X. 

RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 



X. 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 

"And Moses was with the Lord forty days and forty nights; 
. . . and Moses* face shone while he talked with Him.'''' — Ex- 
odus 34: 29. 

While the story of Moses is real history, it has 
in it a charm away beyond that of any romance. 
From the ark of bulrushes on the Nile to the hid- 
den grave somewhere in the altitudes of Nebo, one 
thrilling incident gives way to another incident 
just as thrilling. His is the greatest name of all 
antiquity. He was sublimely magnificent for per- 
sonal purity, for grandeur of conception, and for 
wisdom of judgment. He made great everything 
he touched. There are higher mountain-peaks in 
the world than those of Sinai — peaks crested with 
deeper snow ; peaks with double its beetling crags ; 
peaks thunder-riven and storm-scarred a thousand 
times beyond it. Why does Sinai tower above 
these on the page of history? Moses made his 
home there in the heart of its solitudes, and brought 
from thence the deep things of God, and this is 
239 



240 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



the reason. Out from the deepest crevice of its 
cloud-covered summit came forth this man of God 
with a shining face, a pictorial person, his arms 
burdened with The Decalogue, God's richest gift 
to the men of old. He not only made Sinai great, 
he made the Hebrew nation great. He so stamped 
himself upon the Hebrew people that even to-day, 
after the cruel wanderings of centuries without 
king and without country, they are unmistakably 
a separated and distinct people. " The birthmark 
of the Hebrew Moses is ineffaceable." 

It is in connection with his gift of The Decalogue 
to the world that he is introduced by the text. 
Fresh from the mountain of God, he stands before 
us in the glory of a spiritual transfiguration. What 
transfigured the man? Answer this question for 
us and you will give us the grand secret of his 
grand life. Communion with God : that was what 
transfigured him, and broadened him, and gave him 
power, and enlightened his intellect, and wrought 
in him the miracle of purity, and made him "a 
Fire- Pillar in Israel." The best parts of his hu- 
man nature were fed and sustained by the manna 
of the Promised Land, and his love was purgated 
by the higher lights of heaven. 

My fellow-men, as Moses stands before us with 
his shining face, he is a spiritual and refined image 
of the highest dream of aspiring humanity. We 
want to be just like him. This incident in his life 
links itself to an incident which ought to be pos- 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 24 1 

sible, and which I believe is possible, in our life. 
As he was with God in Sinai, so we may be with 
God in the sacramental room, and from this room 
we may go forth with a transfigured purpose which 
may work itself into a transfigured life. I believe 
that there is in every Christian a divine something 
which, when it fully develops, becomes a transfig- 
uration, a shining light, a golden mosaic of moral 
splendors. The life of Moses was the life of a man 
beautifully growing away from all selfishness and 
tapering off toward God. And in this I believe 
our life may be like his. 

It is a great blessing for us to have an ideal 
human life such as this life. I am glad to have 
God as an example and Christ as an example, but 
I am just as glad to have Moses and Paul and 
John. They are nearer to me than God and Christ. 
They serve for me a purpose which God and Christ 
do not. They are greatness and success rising 
right out of infirmity and sin like my own. They 
show me how near like God and Christ I can be- 
come. God and Christ as ideals frighten me ; but 
when in Moses and Paul and John I behold how 
much of God and Christ a sinful man can incar- 
nate, I take courage and press on to the goal of 
Christ-likeness. There is a tremendous inspiration 
in one good man. His hand is the hand of God 
taking hold of his fellow-man and lifting him up. 
God is not jealous of him ; Christ is not jealous of 
him. God and Christ are in him and are working 



242 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



through him. Moses brings just so much of God 
down from the mountain into the midst of Israel. 
Christ lives anew in Paul. It is God's glory that 
shines in Moses' face. It is Christ's brain that 
writes its thoughts by Paul's pen. When we com- 
mune with them we are communing with God. 
They are sunbeams from the Sun of Righteous- 
ness, and as pencils of holy light they will beautify 
our character with spiritual beauties, just as the 
rays of the natural sun beautify the spring flower 
with those splendors which are braided into every 
beam of light. 

While we are thus to value, and do value, the 
men of God — :such as the minister of the gospel, 
who brings us the Word of God freshened and 
vitalized by his faith and experience and ear- 
nestness and personality ; and the Sabbath-school 
teacher, who studies for us and prays for us, and 
who leads us over the pages of the Bible and wins 
us to Christ by fidelity and sympathy and exam- 
ple; and the devout friend, who lives so near to 
God in his daily life that he is an enlightened con- 
science to us, an interpreter of God, and a prized 
representative of God, a living epistle of God to 
us — while we value the men of God, still there is 
God and there is Christ, and we need them also. 
We need them with a supreme need. We must 
all deal with God and Christ directly and person- 
ally, each one for himself, and each one for her- 
self. We want Paul plus Paul's Christ. We want 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 243 

Moses plus Moses' God. Our souls cry out for 
God, the living God. We must have what Moses 
had and what Paul had — communion with God. 
It was fellowship with God that made these men. 
It was God in their life that made them great, and 
God in any life will make it great. Oh that men 
were wise and that they understood this! Oh 
that they would study what God brings with Him 
into a human life! Oh that they would look at 
the ten thousand failures among the men who walk 
our streets — men of high natural endowments, men 
who might be great, but who are not great because 
they have not asked God to permit them to be 
great, or to help them to be great. I have lived 
long enough to learn that no man in this world can 
succeed, with a success that is worth having, unless 
he get permission from God to succeed. You man, 
living indifferently with regard to God's will and 
God's Church and God's day and God's people, do 
you call your life a success? Are you proud of 
your nature and of your growth ? If you are, your 
friends are not. Are you a Moses? Are you a 
Paul ? I am here to affirm it as the verdict of the 
ages that the only broad life and the only grand 
life is the life that is lived in constant fellowship 
with God. All other type of life is ill-shaped and 
narrow, and a thing for which we must constantly 
offer apologies. It is not a rich gem into which 
we can let the sunlight pour and get it back flash- 
ing in colors which charm and thrill. A life apart 



244 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



from God is a life of flesh and sin, and a life of flesh i 
and sin always contracts and narrows and paralyzes. 
It soon locks a man up so that he can undertake 
nothing grand and do nothing grand. The children 
of Israel by following such a life actually lost forty 
precious years, and the whole generation died 
within sight of Canaan, which they had not the 
pluck nor the ability to take. They were sin- 
fettered. 

There is a very strange story in Fox's " Book 
of Martyrs " which serves me here. It is told 
of one of the Protestant martyrs who saw his 
brethren put to death by burning. He was re- 
served for a more ingenious torment. He was 
placed in a luxurious chamber and left to himself 
all day, with the choicest of food to eat and the 
best of wine to drink. He was not able for a long 
time to understand what this could mean. This 
was very far from torment. But after a while the 
thought struck him that the walls were coming 
nearer together. To assure himself, he measured 
the distance between them. After a few days he 
measured the distance again, and to his utmost 
horror he found that that was actually his torture 
— the walls coming nearer and nearer. In a few 
days the room was a cell ; in a few days more it 
was a terrible vise ; in a few days more it was the 
narrowest possible coffin, no wider than a knife- 
blade. The man was crushed as thin as a sheet 
of paper. This is a picture of what a life of sin 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 24$ 

and godlessness does with the manhood and the 
grand natural powers of the sinner. Such a life 
tightens around a man like a vise, and crushes him 
into imbecility and narrowness and nothingness. 

Opposite this type of life I now put the life 
lived in fellowship with God — a life which ex- 
pands and beautifully ripens and becomes lumi- 
nous ; a life after the pattern of the sublime life of 
Moses. 

We are to think for a little while of what we 
receive from our fellowship with God. We do 
receive. Let us get hold of that fact. There are 
results, and these are grand. What are these re- 
sults ? In answering this question I take my 
answers from the story of Moses, the great picto- 
rial, shining personality of the Old Testament. I 
shall only speak long enough to point out three 
results. 

The first result of communion with God which 
I mention is : 

1. Accumulated knowledge. 

This was the resultant of Moses' communion with 
God. He himself is our witness. He has large 
knowledge, but he does not take the credit of it 
to himself. He was an educated man. He was 
a graduate of the Oxford of ancient Egypt. He 
studied mathematics and astronomy and chemistry 
under the experts of the day. He was versed in 
literature. He could read the hieroglyphics. The 
Obelisk which stands in Central Park, New York, 



246 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



stood in front of the very temple where he studied, 
and no doubt he often read that writing on it, 
which is sealed to us. 

While he was finely educated, he does not attrib- 
ute his superior knowledge and his insight into 
divine things to his secular education; he attrib- 
utes these to God. He declares that the wonder- 
ful things which he uttered and which he wrote 
he received from God during the hours of his com- 
munion with Him while alone with Him in the 
Mount. 

I have not time to analyze his knowledge or 
present it in its fullness. You have it in the open- 
ing of the Bible. Let me select only a specimen 
or two. Read the closing words of the Book of 
Deuteronomy. The words of blessing which you 
find there are fit to be put side by side with the 
Beatitudes of Jesus with which He opens his won- 
derful Sermon on the Mount. Read the thirty- 
second chapter of Deuteronomy. It is one of the 
sublimest human compositions on record. It was 
Moses' swan song. It is the storehouse from 
which later Scripture-writers draw plentifully. It 
has been called the Magna Charta of Prophecy. 
Take one figure as an illustration of its beauty 
and charm — the figure of God as He trains His 
people and leads them from one high thing to 
another, until they reach the full mastery of them- 
selves and climb to the heights of their being. 
He compares the Eternal in this leading to the 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 247 

mother eagle teaching its young to climb the 
unaccustomed steeps of the atmosphere until they 
are able to reach at will, and at any time, the 
highest point of the blue dome; until they are 
able to pierce even the fiercest storm, and, while 
the elements are emitting their firebolts below and 
sending their thunders shrieking over the hill-tops 
of earth, bask in the calm above the storm and 
look the sun full in the face. 

The most noted embodiment of knowledge 
which Moses has left us is The Decalogue. In it 
we have a positive masterpiece which men have 
never been able to improve. Can you put your 
critical finger upon a single weak word in it? Or 
can you cite a single line that is wanting in intel- 
lectuality or in moral dignity? To trifle with a 
single commandment would be to injure one's self 
and to jeopardize society. These Ten Command- 
ments know us in the totality of nature, and we 
can only escape from them by telling lies to our 
souls. They are rooted, every one of them, in our 
constitution. They give us a right view of God, 
and a right view of our fellow-man, and a right 
view of self, and a right view of duty. Ah, that 
word "duty " is where we stumble. We do not 
by nature like the word "duty," so we are preju- 
diced against the Ten Commandments. We ask, 
in a tone of depreciation, What is this law from 
heaven? Is there any grace in it? Is there any 
touch of love ? Is there any trembling of pathos ? 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Is it not all hard iron? Is it not all tremendous 
exaction? Is it not simply a pitiless, tyrannous 
claim? We hate the word "duty" therefore we 
hate also the very name of "law" Duty ! Duty ! 
Why, duty is the grandest thing to which any man 
can be called. When faithfully met it carries in 
it the crown of eternal life. Our questions show 
that we are not just to the innermost meaning 
of the Ten Commandments. If they were kept, 
would they not sweeten society? Would they 
not watch over human life with ineffable tender- 
ness ? If every one kept the Ten Commandments 
according to their spirit and letter, human society 
would be free from all evil and full of all good. 
Communion with God helps us to read aright the 
commandments of God, and enables us to keep 
company with their inner and deeper meaning. 
By communion with God we reach God's mind 
relative to The Decalogue and all truth. We 
understand what duty is, what truth is, what love 
is, and what is the ultimatum of the good and of 
the bad. 

The second result of communion with God which 
I mention is : 

2. Inspiring visions. 

No life had more sublime visions in it than the 
beautiful and strong life of Moses, the man of God. 
If you took his visions away from him you would 
wholly unmake his life. There was a time in his 
work when he almost decided to give up his task 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 24Q 

and surrender to what seemed to him to be the 
inevitable. The people whom he tried to lead into 
the Land of Promise kept sinning so persistently, 
that he concluded he could make nothing of them. 
He said to himself, " I might as well give up now, 
for I shall have to give up by and by." But 
did he give up? No. Why? God strengthened 
him by a vision. He had said to himself, " These 
people, by their repeated backsliding and sin, will 
some day so provoke God that He will blot them 
out of existence." So God came to him and gave 
him a vision. He hid Moses in the cleft of a 
mighty rock while He passed by him in His glory, 
and as He passed by He proclaimed His name : 
" I am the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long- 
suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and 
transgression and sin." Standing before the vision 
of these magnificent attributes of God, the discour- 
aged Moses said, " If this be the disposition of 
God toward sinning man, if this be the way He 
forgives and forgives and forgives, I will still hold 
on to sinning Israel." And he started forth again 
in his leadership with a new zeal. What would 
have been the result if that vision had not come? 
The whole future trembled in the balance : the 
Promised Land, the Kingdom, the coming kings 
and prophets, the writers of the Bible, the Messiah, 
the cross, the Gospel, and great Christendom itself. 
Let the vision fail to come, and down goes the 



250 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



discouraged Moses, and with him this magnificent 
train. But Moses entered during the hour of his 
discouragement into communion with God, and 
saw God, and became like God. Filled with God's 
tender and forgiving spirit, he reached forth the 
hand of compassion to the children of Israel. 

Mountain-tops were frequent in the life of Moses, 
hence he saw a great way onward. From the 
summit of Sinai he saw the heights and the depths 
of the Law ; and from the summit of Pisgah he 
saw Lebanon, and Hermon, and Mount Zion, and 
the Jordan. He saw right into the heart of the 
Promised Land. These visions made him pure, 
and ambitious for the right, and enterprising, and 
full of hope ; and enabled him to die confident 
that the future of his cause, which was God's 
cause, would be all- glorious. 

As the seer of visions, Moses was not only the 
lawgiver of Israel, he was also the poet of Israel. 
The true poet is always a mountain-top man. 
And the true poet always has a mission among 
men. It is his mission to idealize the real, and 
beautify and glorify the commonplace in life. It is 
his place to soar for his fellow- men ; to commune 
with God for his fellow-men ; to see visions for his 
fellow-men ; to be an inspiration to men ; and 
to teach men how to see the best in things and 
persons. It is his to sway other men's minds as 
the storm sways the tree-tops. He points out the 
spiritual side of the facts of life. He takes man, 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 2$1 

chained to sense, choked by scientific sappers, 
helplessly entangled in plodding cares, crushed by 
gold and silver, stunted under the shadow of the 
warehouse and palace, and breaks his chain. He 
lifts him into clear air, shows the divine side of 
care, interprets sorrow, anchors the soul in God, 
and throws about the simplest act an eternal sig- 
nificance. We lose our visions ; we vulgarize life. 
The poet by his visions brings back our Heals. 
He shows man to be better than he seems, nature 
to be more tolerant and kind, and God more mer- 
ciful. To idealize the streets, and the fields, and 
the sea, and the mountains, and the rivers ; to lift 
business out of the ruts and give it its divine inter- 
pretation ; to find music in the clattering wheels 
of the factory ; to take vulgarity out of the home, 
and transfigure the humblest duty, until passion 
becomes patience and love and self-denial — is to 
do humanity an immeasurable good. 

This is the order of things in our communion 
with God. From God we get knowledge, and out 
of the knowledge which we get from God we grow 
visions. Knowledge is like the acorn which we 
hold in our hand ; our vision is the possible oak. 
For example, we know the blessings which God 
gives to His own children; let us climb to the 
heights of ourselves, and by a consecrated imagi- 
nation let us see these blessings worked out in our 
own individual life. Let us forecast our future 
selves what we should like to be, and then with all 



252 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



our might let us work toward our forecast. In 
the presence of God's love, and in the light of His 
countenance, we ought to be able to see what is 
possible to us as His children. This communion 
Sabbath should bring us all new desires for better 
lives, and for attainments not yet reached, and for 
sweeter dispositions, and for purer motives, and for 
nobler deeds ; in this sacred presence we should 
all see better things ahead of us. 

The third result of communion with God which 
I mention is : 

3. Assimilation to the image of God. 

Knowledge received from communion with God 
when applied to life becomes ideals and visions to 
us ; these visions and ideals, worked toward and 
finally reached by us, become a holy incarnation, 
a personal transformation, a beautincation of our 
soul and life and character. A holy incarnation, 
a transformed personality, a beautiful soul and life 
and character — these constitute the image of God 
in us. 

We are assimilated to the image of God in a 
twofold way. 

First, by an outward influence: i.e., by living in 
an atmosphere surcharged with God's influence ; 
by associating with God-like men. These holy 
men impress themselves upon us, and we grow 
like them, and like God because they are like 
God. We all know the molding power of sur- 
roundings. The child in the home is an illustra- 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 253 

tion. It soon takes on the family character, and 
becomes the facsimile of father or mother. All 
things in the home have an influence upon it — 
the touch of human hands, the sound of human 
voices, and after a while the mysterious light of 
human eyes, when the child begins to take notice. 
This home influence is mightier than we imagine, 
and it begins earlier than we dream. 

The biographer of Lady Willoughby tells this 
story pertaining to her mother-life. She was 
standing at her window-casement one day looking 
out upon the lawn, and in her arms was her infant 
child. The deer were playing on the green, and 
the birds were singing in the trees, and the sun 
Was hanging in the deep blue of a July sky. And 
the face of her little child in the midst of all this 
was shining like the face of an angel. Just then a 
servant of the household who had disobeyed came 
into the lady's presence, and Lady Willoughby 
began to scold her. While the scowl and shadow 
of that dark passion called anger was on her face, 
she suddenly looked down at her child, and was 
startled. What startled her? She saw that pas- 
sion of anger reflected on its little countenance, 
sinking down into the depths of the child's exist- 
ence, and twining itself around the very roots of 
its being. Being a Christian mother, she said to 
herself, "This is wrong. My babe, instead of 
beholding in my face, as a living mirror, the glory 
of the Lord, and being changed into the likeness 



254 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



of that by the Spirit of the Lord, is beholding the 
scowl and shadow of that dark passion, anger, and 
is being changed into the likeness of that." Human 
nature is marvelously susceptible to the human in- 
fluences in the midst of which it is placed. Hence 
we must look after our human associations, and keep 
ourselves in constant touch with God-people. We 
must people our hours with lovely presences which 
refine. We must be companions only of those who 
fear and love God. Timothy must live with Paul 
and let Paul make him. Ruth must live with Naomi 
and let Naomi make her. Joshua must live with 
Moses and let Moses make him. 

The second way in which we are assimilated to 
the image of God is by the inward forces which 
zvork in our soul outward. These inward forces 
are the thoughts we think, the principles we hold, 
the purposes we cherish, the volitions of our will, 
the dictates of our conscience, and the loves which 
we allow to sway us. If these are God-like they 
make us God-like. That we may bear the image 
of God, God must be enthroned in the soul, and 
we must regulate our secret soul-life by'His holy 
will. We must think as He thinks, and love as 
He loves, and act as He acts. Our soul and God 
must be in sweet accord. The state of the soul is 
everything. If as a die it carries in it the image 
of God, it will stamp that image not only upon 
our whole personality, but on everything we do 
and say and advocate. 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 255 

What strikes us particularly in this story of 
Moses is the fact that his illumined soul so shines 
that its brightness irradiates his whole form and 
flashes in his countenance. His body becomes 
transparent and is like a crystal lobe around an 
electric light. His communion with God made 
him a man with a solar face. It gave him facial 
beauty. His very body was a partaker of his 
transfiguration and carried the marks of God. And 
strange as this may strike us at first thought, it is 
nevertheless according to the operation of the laws 
of nature. Our thoughts and our loves are chisels 
working upon our faces, keeping them smooth, or 
else cutting into them lines that are expressive. 

You know the power of the intellect in molding 
the face. Elevating thoughts remove the marks 
of sensuality and replace them by a fineness of 
lofty self-control. There is not a virtue which, if 
continually exercised, will not refine and leave a 
new fairness upon the features. You know what 
the play of passion will do. Take the passion of 
a noble love. It always gives facial loveliness. It 
irradiates a man as the sun does the earth. It 
gives one an opulence of personal magnetism. 
When this love is the love of God, it is the great- 
est of all known powers. There is no person, if 
he has the love of God in his soul, but will shine 
with a divine outward beauty. We saw this illus- 
trated last winter by the missionary who told us 
of the progress of the gospel among the wild 



256 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Indians of the extreme West. He threw upon 
the screen life-size pictures of the Indian children 
as they were when they entered the Christian 
school, and then he threw upon the screen pict- 
ures of these very same children after they had 
been with Christ and His people for five and six 
years. The pictures revealed to us that they had 
passed through a literal transfiguration. The very 
features of their faces were converted to Jesus 
Christ and partook of His glory. Those pictures 
taught us that if we sought simply physical beau- 
tification it would pay us to live with God and for 
God. Keep holy the emotions, think exaltedly, 
feel deeply and purely, and live continently. The 
divinity within shapes the divinity without. The 
soul is the cardinal beautifier. 

The greatest chemical agency in the known 
world is holy love. It celestializes the face of a 
man. It haloed the countenance of Moses; and 
from his day to this, all nations, when they would 
represent men as possessed of extraordinary sanc- 
tity, or as enjoying large and familiar intercourse 
with God, do so by throwing a lucid nimbus or 
circle of glory around their heads. 

Do you ask, " Why am not I a luminous person 
as was Moses? I love God. I commune with 
God " ! The answer to your question is, There is 
a large difference between the degree of your love 
and his. There is a difference also in the quality, 
intenseness, and continuance of your communion 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 2 57 

with God and his. Forty days and forty nights 
in uninterrupted communion with God in the 
mount ! Were you ever that long in communion 
with God? The effects are not wrought in you 
which were wrought in Moses because the causes 
are not at work in you which were at work in him. 
The image of God in and on you is exactly pro- 
portionated to your efforts after the image of God. 
Causes and effects always correspond. If you 
make a certain number of vibrations in the air you 
will have sound ; increase the vibrations and you 
will have light. As is the cause so is the effect. 
Follow God moderately and you will be a fairly 
reputable man; you will have a name sounding 
fairly well, as respectability is gauged and denned 
by the world ; but follow the Lord fully and com- 
pletely as the supreme thing of your life, and you 
will be a luminous leader of your fellow-men, and 
a Christ-power enlightening human conscience. 
Bring into your life in larger measure the things 
which Moses brought into his life, and you will 
be more of a Moses. 

I have only one thought to present in closing, 
and that is this : 

God and man have been made one by Jesus Christ, 
and so fellowship with God is possible to all who 
love Jesus and put their trust in Him. 

And, my fellow-men, the last needed act of 
Jesus which consummated the unity, and bridged 
the chasm between God and man, was that act of 



258 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



His which we celebrate to-day in the Sacramental 
Supper, viz., His death on the cross. It was as 
He died that He cried, "It is finished.''' His 
gracious words, His wondrous works, all contribute 
to bridging the distance between God and man, 
but it was not until He offered Himself a sacrifice 
upon the cross that the way was completed be- 
tween heaven and earth and that both worlds 
heard the shout of the Son of God. 

On the ioth of May, 1869, at a place called 
Promontory Point, the junction was made com- 
pleting the railway communication between the 
Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. A silver spike 
was brought by the Governor of Arizona and 
another was contributed by the citizens of Ne- 
vada. They were driven home into a sleeper of 
California laurel with a silver mallet. As the 
last blow was struck the hammer was brought 
into contact with a telegraph wire, and the news 
was flashed simultaneously to the shores of the 
two great oceans, and was enthusiastically re- 
ceived throughout the vast continent by the roar 
of cannon and the chiming of bells. When the 
awful abyss between God and man had to be 
bridged, the deepest chasm was covered by the 
outstretched arms of the Son of God ; and as the 
cruel spikes crashed through His open palms and 
transfixed Him to the cross, He cried, "It is fin- 
ished ; " and swifter than electric currents, or the 
lightning flash, the tidings were winged to the 



RESULTS OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 2$g 

uttermost parts of the two worlds united, heaven 
and earth. Over the new and the living way God 
has come to-day to greet us each one, and hold 
communion with us, and communicate His glory 
to us. Let us come to His table as Moses climbed 
the mount, that we may receive from Him the 
communications of His grace, and then let us go 
to our homes and to our daily avocations with 
shining faces. 

Lord, Thou hast given us the communion ; grant 
now, we beseech Thee, the shining face. May we 
go down from Thy table to build up a shining 
character and live a shining life. As Moses came 
down from the mount bearing in his arms the 
Decalogue, may we go down from Thy table bear- 
ing with us some word of Thine : even the words 
of the Master Himself, " Ye are the light of the 
world : let your light so shine, that others, seeing 
your good works, may glorify your Father who is 
in heaven." 



XI. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHRIST THE OLD 
TESTAMENT SHEKINAH. 



XI. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHRIST THE 
OLD TESTAMENT SHEKINAH. 

" And the Glory of the Lord shone round about them.'''' — Luke 2 : 9. 

ALL Christendom is on a pilgrimage to a hamlet 
called Bethlehem. Bethlehem is crowded to-day 
with living souls, because it is a place of wonderful 
and far-reaching facts, and because it holds the 
cradle of the Christ- Child. From it many lines of 
Christology diverge, and these are all different and 
beautiful and interesting. Around no one spot 
has God's Book thrown greater interest. It makes 
it the center of stories full of witchery and thrill. 
These stories show that no sooner was Jesus born 
than He stirred the world far and near. The com- 
ing of the Son of God, from the bosom of His 
heavenly Father to the bosom of His earthly 
mother, moved the universe. A new star loomed 
in the sky, and guided a cavalcade of wise men 
from far-away lands, moving amid the tinkling 
bells of camels, to the place where the young 
263 



264 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Child lay. The angels saw Jehovah in a fresh 
field of splendid display, and followed Him to the 
earth, and announced His presence and sang His 
praise. Shepherds, watching their flocks on Christ- 
mas night, saw wonders in the heaven, and heard 
audible voices, and caught strains from the harps 
of gold. These wonders which cluster around the 
Nativity, and which Faber calls "the Hierarchy 
of the Incarnation," are the things which rule our 
thoughts to-day. We can no more imagine the 
Nativity without these thrilling events, than we 
can imagine the evening without its twilight ; or 
the sun without its clouds of silver and gold; or 
the morning without its glittering dewdrops. 
They are the poetic adornments of the Nativity, 
as well as the historic facts which give reality to 
the Incarnation. 

Among all the beautiful stories connected with 
the origin of our faith, we know of none that excels 
the story of THE Glory-light, which threw a 
sunburst into the heart of midnight, and made the 
plains of Bethlehem flash with splendor. It is the 
briefest of all the stories. It is told in a part of a 
sentence. It is only a parenthesis from one of the 
sentences in the story of the shepherds : " And 
the Glory of the Lord shone round about 
them." Although it is a story in a single phrase, 
it contains a volume of revelation concerning Jesus 
Christ. It carries in it, in condensed form, much 
of that which is grand and magnificent in the Old 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHRIST. 265 

Testament. Wrapped up in it is the history of the 
Shekinah; for "THE GLORY OF THE LORD " 
which shone at Bethlehem is none other than this. 
Again and again in the Old Testament the She- 
kinah is called "the Glory of the Lord." 
Hence we read: "The Glory of the Lord 
shone out of the pillar of cloud and fire " ; " THE 
GLORY OF THE LORD rested over the taber- 
nacle"; "The Glory of the Lord filled the 
temple." 

The Babe in the manger is the Shekinah of God, 
and this is the reason the angels sing, and the glory 
shines. The story of THE Glory-light when 
rightly developed and fully told has a wide sweep. 
It teaches what the Nativity brings us. It gives 
honor to the humiliation of the Son of God, and 
declares the majesty of the Incarnation. It throws 
a golden haze over a golden picture. It indicates 
that you cannot find Christ, anywhere in this 
Book, separated from the evidences of His deity. 
Is He on the cross dying as a criminal? His 
divine power convulses nature. Is He in the feed- 
trough of the cattle? His divine glory lights up 
the skies. Because He is the Son of God, the 
story of the Glory-light is one of the most 
natural parts of His history. 

But what are we to think of this light which 
the shepherds saw? Was it the Shekinah on its 
way to inhabit the Christ- Child, so that it might 
be said, " In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the 



266 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Godhead bodily " ? Or was it the deity that was 
in Him already, as the Incarnate Son of God, 
throwing out a manifestation of itself from the 
manger in a mysterious and God-like way? It 
was the latter. 

Do you object because of the distance between 
the manger and the plain ? That was no distance 
for Him to throw His glory. On an after-occasion 
Jesus threw His indwelling splendor all the way 
from heaven to earth, and filled the road to Da- 
mascus with a brightness that made the light of 
the midday sun sickly and pale. 

This is the fearless and safe position to take, for 
it is antipodal and counteractive to that taken by 
rationalists, who, by their naturalisms, evaporate 
into myths these thrilling things of the Nativity. 
Above all, this is the Scriptural position, as we will 
see in the progress of our thought. 

In taking up the story of THE GLORY-LIGHT 
as told at Bethlehem, we do not mean to tie our- 
selves to it as to a mere fact which any historian 
might record ; we mean to look at it in its broad 
relations and suggestions, that we may get from it 
some of those grand Christie realities which will 
give new life and power to our faith in Christ and 
to our worship of Christ. Feeding upon bare 
facts and letting the great doctrines and lessons 
contained in them fall to the ground, is passing 
through the golden grain-fields of truth and pluck- 
ing ears and then rubbing out the wheat and eating 



THE OLD TESTAMENT SHEKINAH. 26 J 

the chaff. Historical facts are only the shells that 
inclose the spiritual meat. 

God does not mean to tie us to the cradle of 
the Christ- Child and keep us there. He gives us 
permission to bound out into the history of the 
Christ- Man. The mother stands by the crib of 
her babe, but she is not tied to the crib. Bodily 
she is there, but mentally she is not. Like Han- 
nah by the side of her little Samuel, her thoughts 
run into the past and then into the future. She 
recalls how she prayed him into the world, and she 
builds up for him a future ideal life and character. 
The cradle of her babe is an ark, and in it she sails 
to far lands. This is what God intends she shall 
do. Even so God intends that when we visit the 
cradle of the Christ- Child, we, like her, shall give 
free range and outlet to our souls. Swing out, O 
my soul, swing "out, and explore the glories of thy 
Redeemer born in Bethlehem! Recognize this 
fact, that from Bethlehem gates open outward on 
four sides, north and south and east and west, into 
all spheres of thought and truth; just as in the 
celestial city of John, gates in all the walls open 
inward to spheres of light and glory. Swing out, 
and gather to thyself some of the great thoughts 
and grand lessons belonging to this period of joy! 

In the study of this Christmas theme we hope 
to fill up the following outline : Watch the play 
of the Shekinah in its conspicuous appearances of 
the Old Testament ; identify Christ of Bethlehem, 



268 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



the Son of God, with the Shekinah ; set forth some 
of the facts concerning Christ revealed or empha- 
sized by the Shekinah. 

I. We are to talk of the play of the Shekinah in 
the conspicuous appearances of the Old Testament. 

But why go back to the Old Testament and 
deal with the pictorial Christ when we have the 
real Christ? For this reason: that we may have 
both. Two are better than one. But are not the 
typical pictures of Christ mere rubbish now that 
we own Christ Himself ? No ; certain schools of 
theology to the contrary. These Old Testament 
pictures are doing a magnificent work as educators 
in the Christian • Church. They are divine com- 
mentaries. They are the products of a keen- eyed 
artist, and they exalt and emphasize the things in 
Christ to be made prominent, and show us how 
God looks upon Him. Allow me an illustration. 
An artist paints the landscape on the farm where 
you were reared and over which your eye ranged 
every day for long years. You look at his finished 
picture with the consciousness that you are a com- 
petent judge as to its accuracy. Your critical eye 
at once finds a tree which sets off the picture, or 
a curvature in the mountain which gives it grace. 
You say, " I admire these ; they intensify the 
beauty of the landscape ; but they are not true to 
life, and they have no right in the picture. Neither 
the tree nor the curvature has an existence in fact. 
I know every item in that landscape." The artist 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHRIST. 269 

declares that they have a nexistence in fact, else as 
a truthful man he would not have put them on the 
canvas. He maintains that his picture is an exact 
copy of nature. To prove the trueness of his work, 
he takes you to the landscape itself ; and to your 
amazement, both tree and curvature are there. 
Your eye had all along overlooked them. Thus it 
is. There are many facts in Christ's history, many 
functions in His offices, many beautiful shadings 
in His character, which would be entirely over- 
looked by us if the divine pictures of the Old 
Testament did not set them forth in bold and 
striking outline. There are not two Christs. The 
men who know most of Christ are the men who 
study both Testaments, and who hold to the 
divinity of both. If what we have said be true, 
we should be stimulated in watching the play of 
the Shekinah in the Old Testament. 

The Shekinah has a larger place in the Bible 
than is generally supposed. It is in every book 
of Moses. You meet it in Joshua, in the Book 
of Kings, in the Chronicles, and in the stories of 
Ezra and Nehemiah. The Psalms sing of it. The 
prophets refer to it. It reappears in the New 
Testament, and you meet with it in the Gospels, 
and in the Acts, and in the Epistles, and in the 
Apocalypse. Where it does not appear boldly 
and openly, it hides itself in eloquent allusions, 
and in figures to which it gives origin, and which 
it tinges and beautifies with its golden light. If 



270 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



there had been no Shekinah, these words would 
never have been written : " We beheld His glory, 
the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full 
of grace and truth." If there had been no She- 
kinah, these words would not have been written : 
" He was the brightness of the Father's glory and 
the express image of His person." So large is the 
place accorded to it by inspiration, and so wonder- 
ful are the deeds ascribed to it, that instinctively 
as we read the Word we ask ourselves, What was 
the Shekinah? The only answer that can match 
its prominence is this : It was the visible embodi- 
ment of Jehovah. It was the Son of God dwelling 
in light that is inaccessible and full of glory. He 
was the inner essence of that concentrated glowing 
brightness. 

We first meet the Shekinah at the gate of Para- 
dise in the form of " the flaming sword." The Old 
Testament begins by introducing it, just as the 
New Testament does. Eden and Bethlehem, the 
frontispieces of the two Testaments, glow with its 
light. The record in Genesis is : " So God drove 
out the man : and He placed [or Shekinahed] at 
the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a 
flaming sword which turned every way, to keep 
the way of the tree of life." The ordinary reader 
sees only justice here; but there is more than 
justice, there is mercy. It was mercy in God to 
turn man out of Eden, for had he eaten there and 
then of the tree of life he would have perpetuated 



THE OLD TESTAMENT SHE KIN A II. 2Jl 

his misery. Still God did not intend to keep 
man forever from the tree of life. If He had He 
would have plucked the tree up by the roots and 
have cast it into the fire. No ; God wanted man 
to reach it in the right way, and through the seed 
of the woman, according to the promise just given ; 
so He set up at Eden, what we afterward find in 
the temple, a Holy Place, a center of worship, 
where man was taught the way of salvation by 
the symbols of the cherubim and flaming sword. 
When it is said that Cain and Abel came to wor- 
ship before the Lord, it is meant that they came 
to this Holy Place. When it is said of Cain, after 
his sin and sentence, that " he went out from the 
presence of the Lord," it is meant that he went 
away from this Holy Place. It was in this place 
that men first prayed, " O Thou that dwellest 
between the cherubim, shine forth." It was the 
mission of these symbols, " flaming sword and 
cherubim," to keep the way of the tree of life. If 
they had not kept it, it would have been lost. 
Thus we see there was cause for singing the song 
of redemption at Eden as well as at Bethlehem. 
Scarcely was the dark word "sin" written on the 
Bible-page, when the bright word " salvation " 
was written by its side. Such is the swift action 
of the infinite love of our God, that even while the 
crash of the fall echoed in the atmosphere, the 
strokes of the hammers of reconstruction were 
heard. 



2 72 OUR BEST MOODS. 

The Shekinah next appears conspicuously in the 
story of Moses. It appeared to him in the burning 
bush, and called him to his great life-work. The 
shepherd Moses on the plains of Midian saw, and 
that centuries before the birth of Jesus, what the 
unnamed shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem saw. 
The bush and the manger were joined together by 
a pathway of Shekinah light. It appeared unto 
Moses afterward when he was despairing of his 
life-work, and when he turned for hope to God, 
crying, " O Lord, I beseech Thee, show me Thy 
glory." In answer to that cry Moses saw THE 
Glory OF the Lord, and communed with God 
in the Shekinah, and returned to the camp with a 
shining face. 

After the time of Moses, the Shekinah dwelt for 
centuries in the Holy of Holies, in tabernacle and 
temple, as the center of worship, and as the token 
of God's acceptance of His covenant people. At 
the destruction of Solomon's Temple it was with- 
drawn to heaven and was seen no more until it 
blazed over Bethlehem on Christmas night. But 
the most prominent appearance in the time of 
Moses remains to be noticed. I refer to its ap- 
pearance in The Pillar of Cloud and of Fire. To 
me this is the most wonderful thing in all the his- 
tory of the Hebrews. I see God in it, as the cap- 
tain and leader of the covenant hosts. 

Some writers try to explain it away by saying 
that it was nothing but the common fire-signal 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHRIST. 273 

which led armies in ancient times. It was the 
custom in ancient times for a leader to go before 
the army, holding up a beacon of fire and smoke. 
The cloudlessness of the sky gave the smoke den- 
sity of volume and uprightness and boldness of 
outline, so that it could be seen far and near. But 
the Bible history declares that the guide of Israel 
was not an ordinary beacon- fire. It was no human 
creation. No human hand held it up. No human 
will directed its course. It balanced itself in mid- 
air, and moved without the aid of created force. 
The rains could not quench it ; the wind could not 
scatter it. It stood as solid as a rock amid the 
fiercest storms. In the daytime it threw its folds 
out like a canopy and protected the hosts from the 
scorching sun ; during the night-time, when it led 
the march, it blazed before them like a torch-light, 
a mile high. When it rested the camp rested ; when 
it marched the camp marched. 

What a day the coming of The Pillar of Cloud 
and of Fire must have been to the Hebrews ! It 
was Bethlehem before its time. It was a genuine 
Christmas to the covenant people. Think of that 
day ! Make it real by the play of imagination ! 
Talk to your heart about it! What must have 
been the feelings of wonder and of awe in the 
souls of the Hebrews? Were they warned of its 
approach? And did they all go out under the 
clear sky to see it come ? If so, millions of faces 
were turned heavenward, beaming with soul and 



274 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



expectation. A magnificent sight even for God 
to look upon. Who was the first to see the dark 
speck in the far distance? What voice was the 
first to thrill the multitudes with the cry of dis- 
covery, " Yonder it is"? Oh to have been there, 
to have felt the solemn stillness ; and then the wild 
rapture at the sight of God coming to His people 
for permanent dwelling and guidance and protec- 
tion. The dark speck approaches and deepens 
and broadens and sweeps earthward until it rests 
overhead a massive aerial column. We can see 
the people watching it with penetrating gaze until 
the shades of night fall ; and then we can see a 
new wonder kindle among them as the cloud- 
column is transformed in the darkness until it 
blazes before them a pillar of fire. 

Perhaps the most wonderful work wrought by 
The Pillar of Cloud and Fire in the guidance of 
Israel was the victory which it won at the Red Sea. 
When the pursuing Egyptians were about to spring 
upon the trembling Israelites, The Pillar of Cloud 
and Fire threw itself between the hosts. It turned 
its luminous side toward the Hebrews and flashed 
a noonday splendor over all the Red Sea, which 
suddenly rent asunder and presented its bed an 
open highway of escape ; but it turned its dark 
side toward the Egyptians and threw a dark pall 
over them which blinded them. Some people 
wonder that the Egyptians dared to follow the 
Hebrews into the bed of the sea, We have the 



THE OLD TESTAMENT SHEKINAH. 2J$ 



explanation here. They would not have dared 
had they known ; but they did not know. They 
never dreamed of the Red Sea parting, and they 
did not see it part. It is written : " The Pillar of 
Cloud was darkness to them." When they were 
well into the midst of the sea, in their mad pursuit, 
then God looked out from The Pillar of Cloud and 
sent from it His lightning-bolts. As flash upon 
flash shot through the sky and lit up the scene for 
the moment, then it was that the Egyptians recog- 
nized where they were. This recognition filled 
them with panic and terror, and they at once 
sought refuge in flight, crying, as they fled, " The 
Lord fighteth for them." You can easily imagine 
what followed; how, in the confusion, chariot 
dashed against chariot, until multitudes of chariots 
were unwheeled and the flight was impeded. This 
gave the Hebrews time to reach the other shore, 
and left their foes in the bed of the sea when the 
waters returned to their channels. 

With these incidents from the Old Testament 
before us, showing the functions of the Shekinah, 
we are ready to deal with the second part of our 
outline, viz. : 

II. To show the identification of the Shekinah 
with Christ of Bethlehem. 

This involves two steps : first, to show that the 
Shekinah and Jehovah the Son of God are one ; 
and second, to show that Christ of Bethlehem and 
Jehovah the Son of God are one. If they both 



276 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



be Jehovah the Son of God, they are therefore 
one and the same person. To establish this iden- 
tification is a mere matter of Scripture quotation. 
Two direct texts are all we need. Can they be 
found? They can. One text is Exodus 33 : 9-1 1. 
It applies the name " Jehovah " to the Shekinah 
in The Pillar of Cloud. In it " Jehovah " and " The 
Pillar of Cloud " are interchangeable terms. Now 
this is nothing short of complete identification. 
Leaving out the italicized words, which are inter- 
lopers, the text reads : "And it came to pass, as 
Moses entered into the tabernacle, The Cloudy 
Pillar descended and stood at the door of the tab- 
ernacle and talked with Moses. And all the people 
rose up and worshiped. And the Lord spake unto 
Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his 
friend." First it is said The Cloudy Pillar spake 
to Moses, then it is said the Lord spake to Moses, 
thus identifying Jehovah and the Shekinah cloud, 
and teaching that they were one and the same. 

But is the identification of Christ with Jehovah 
as clear as the identification of the Shekinah with 
Jehovah ? Yes. The question brings forward the 
second needed text of Scripture. It is John 1:18. 
This text declares that all revelations of God at all 
times have been given by the Son of God. Now 
revelations were given through the Shekinah of 
the Old Testament, therefore the Shekinah of the 
Old Testament must have been the Son of God. 
This second text was spoken by John concerning 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHRIST. 2*]j 

Jesus of Nazareth, and it calls Him the Son of 
God. If the Shekinah be the Son of God, and if 
Jesus of Nazareth be the Son of God, they are 
one. This second text reads : " No man hath 
seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, 
who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath de- 
clared Him." The text, you see, sweeps over the 
past; it takes in all prior revelations, including 
those given by Jehovah of the Old Testament ; 
and it declares that all these were given by the 
Son of God, whom John in the context calls Jesus 
Christ. 

To confirm this identification, THE GLORY- 
LIGHT shone at Bethlehem when Jesus was born. 
To confirm this identification, the Transfiguration 
of Christ took place one dark night on the mount. 
His robes and face dazzled and shone with Sheki- 
nah glory. The grand purpose of the Transfigu- 
ration was to demonstrate that Jesus was THE 
GLORY OF THE Lord, the Shekinah, in human 
clothing, and that there was within Him the same 
inwrapped inner splendor which in the olden days 
dwelt in The Pillar of Cloud. If the Shekinah 
had not been within Him, it could not have lit up 
His countenance and His robes. To confirm this 
identification, His earthly life, which began with 
the shining of His glory, closed with the shining 
of His glory. Wrapped in the Shekinah cloud, 
He ascended from Olivet and swept out of sight. 
To confirm this identification, we are told that in 



27S 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



heaven He enjoys a perpetual transfiguration, and 
the out-flashing of His glory fills the whole of the 
celestial domain. " They need no sun, neither the 
light of the moon : for the Lamb is the light 
thereof." 

I imagine at this point a voice saying : " But 
what of all this? What if Jesus Christ be the 
Shekinah?" Why, if Jesus be the Shekinah, then 
from the Shekinah we learn what Jesus Christ is 
and does. We learn His character and functions. 
Why, if Jesus Christ be the Shekinah, then the 
unity of the true religion is manifest. The ancient 
Hebrew and the modern Christian worship the 
same God. The Bible is one book, and the two 
Testaments are one revelation. Why, if Jesus 
Christ be the Shekinah, then all the glory of the 
God of the Old Testament is His. It is a mighty 
comfort to the Church collectively and to Christians 
individually, to be able to wheel into the line of 
Christ's works those sublime events of the past out 
of which rise the eternal good of God's people. I 
mean the events wrought by the Shekinah and re- 
corded in the Old Testament. The God of the 
Old Testament is the grand and mighty God. 
Does Jesus Christ contain in Himself all that He 
contained, then Jesus Christ is the grand, mighty 
God, and our covenant relations with Him should 
beget an abiding sense of security. But I am 
discussing the last part of my outline without an- 
nouncing it. It bids me — 



THE OLD TESTAMENT SUE KIN AH. 279 

III. Enumerate the facts concerning Christ, re- 
vealed and emphasized by the Shekinah. These 
are the goal of our present study, and toward these 
we have been pressing. 

1. The Shekinah reveals the divine will, and 
illumines and guides the people of God : so does 
Jesus Christ of Bethlehem. 

For this end was He born. He is the organ of 
communication between God and man. He is to 
the Father what language is to thought — the visi- 
ble expression. He that hath seen Him hath seen 
the Father. He uttered the most luminous say- 
ings ever breathed into our atmosphere. He re- 
gave the law and spiritualized it. He corrected 
human errors. He taught men how to live by 
showing them a perfect life. He leads us to-day, 
by giving us His shining footsteps. Light leaps 
from His words as electricity leaps from the clouds. 
By His Holy Spirit He leads the Church as The 
Pillar of Cloud led Israel. The Book of the Acts 
makes this plain, and demonstrates what He does 
for the Church through His Spirit. There is a 
higher Canaan and a new Jerusalem, and Christ is 
guiding us thitherward. He will continue to guide 
us, until we stand by the river of life which is there, 
and eat of the tree of life which is there, and join 
our ransomed friends who are there. 

2. The Shekinah is the center of worship : so is 
Jesus Christ of Bethlehem. 

No sooner was Christ born than He was recog- 



28o 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



nized as the glory of the Holy of Holies in the 
temple of God, and was made the center of wor- 
ship. Heaven and earth gathered around the 
Christ- Child in the manger. Angels, lifted into 
a fervor of wonder, sang as they never sung be- 
fore, and the sweet strains of their inner jubilee 
breaking forth made the worship around the 
Throne audible on earth. Angels, magi, shep- 
herds, all these worshiped. Far-away lands wor- 
shiped. The immediate neighborhood worshiped. 
Learning worshiped. Industry worshiped. The 
trinity of earth, myrrh and frankincense and gold, 
bowed before the Trinity of heaven. Age wor- 
shiped, and so did manhood in its prime. Mary 
singing her Magnificat, and the angels their Gloria 
in Excelsis, and the shepherds glorifying God and 
telling what they saw on the plain, and the wise 
men narrating, during the interludes of their wor- 
ship, their wonderful experience with the luminous 
finger in the sky which pointed to Bethlehem ; and 
the aged Anna offering her prayer of thanksgiving, 
and the venerable Simeon holding with holy rapt- 
ure the Child in his arms and singing his doxology 
— all this seems to us like a beautiful poem, and 
it is; but more than that, it is a page of prose 
history crowded with thrilling realities. It is a 
type and a picture of what is now and what shall 
be forever ; for Christ will always be the center of 
worship. 

3. The Shekinah protects the people of God and 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHRIST. 28 1 

subdues their enemies : so does Jesus Christ of 
Bethlehem. 

We have seen how the Shekinah was the defense 
of Israel at the Red Sea. In Jesus Christ the same 
person now acts in defense of the Church. He 
who took a horde of slaves out of the grasp of the 
mightiest monarch and made them a nation which 
has done more service for God and for humanity 
than all other nations combined, He it is who is 
the King and Head of the Church. God hath 
given Him to be Head over all things to the 
Church, and He shall reign until He has put all 
things under His feet. He is at every Red Sea 
crisis of Christendom, and His command is, " Speak 
to the children of Israel that they go forward." 
The violent gale, the thunder and lightnings, the 
darkness, the boom of the distant waters, the panic 
and the confusion, all these agencies which com- 
bined to defeat Egypt, the great world-power, in 
its attack upon Israel, the covenant people of God, 
have their counterpart in the forces which Christ 
has set at work for the .defeat of the enemies of 
the truth in the nineteenth century. The Son of 
God to-day, as in the past, throws Himself between 
His people and their sore danger. He threw Him- 
self, with Shekinah splendor, between the trembling 
Church and the persecuting Saul. When the poor 
persecuted Covenanter, who fled up the mountain 
steeps pursued by the dragoons of Claverhouse, 
sent his cry up to Him, " Lord, throw Thy mantle 



282 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



over poor Sandy," He at once flung a garment of 
mist from the sky, and wrapped it around Sandy 
and the mountain; and the bloody Claverhouse 
was baffled and the doomed victim escaped. 

When Spain sent forth its formidable Armada 
to persecute and to kill, He heard the cry of His 
devoted people, and dashed the ships of their foes 
into pieces. In the interests of His people the 
Son of God commands nations, hurls the lightning 
shafts, and sways all the forces of the universe. 
He is in all of the judgments of the nineteenth 
century, and He guides them past His people, and 
directs them straight against the citadel of their 
foes. Issue your decree, O Pharaoh, and consign 
the infants to the Nile ! Issue your decree, O 
Haman, and doom all the covenant people to ex- 
termination! Issue your decree, O Herod, and 
bathe your sword in the bodies of the babes of 
Bethlehem, that you may destroy the new-born 
Christ! But know this, ye wicked rulers of the 
earth : God's decrees antedate yours and over- 
shadow yours, and will inevitably annihilate yours. 
God has a smooth stone ready to smite every Go- 
liath of evil. 

4. The Shekinah exercises an assimilating power 
in the lives of God's people : so does Jesus Christ 
of Bethlehem. 

The presence of the Shekinah was a wonderful 
and a sanctifying force in Israel. It kept the 
thought of God alive. The people felt it to be a 



THE OLD TESTAMENT SHEKINAH. 283 

holy thing, and their thoughts of it made them 
holy. One instance is given of its wonderful power 
to assimilate and transfigure. It is the shining face 
of Moses. Talking with God in it, he absorbed 
some of the glory of the Shekinah. He reflected 
the communicable attributes of God, as the snow 
summits reflect the splendors of the sunset. His 
shining face suited his shining graces. It symbol- 
ized the great fact that by drawing near to God 
we become like God. " With open face beholding 
the glory of God" — i.e., beholding Christ — "we 
are changed into the same image from glory to 
glory." 

The sight of Christ made the face of Stephen 
shine like the face of an angel. No doubt the 
shepherds and the wise men returned to their flocks 
and to their books with shining faces. Christ makes 
us a Shekinah, that is, an habitation of God ; and 
when He does, not only do our graces shine, 
but our faces shine. The illumined soul shines 
through the fleshly envelope which enshrouds 
it, just as the brightly burning lamp makes the 
porcelain shade transparent. When the soul is 
worked up into a fellow-feeling with Christ, it is 
a shining light. Christ born within us, the hope 
of glory, transforms and transfigures our whole 
being, until we become His facsimile, and until we 
become so luminous that we can walk the crystal 
streets of heaven without casting the least shadow. 

Such are some of the Christmas thoughts brought 



284 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



us by the story of THE Glory-light We wel- 
come the story and the season which it adorns. 
This is one of the joy seasons of the Christian year. 
It is the season which should make us feel that 
glory bursts over the earth through Jesus Christ. 
It is the season which should make childhood 
sweeter, and motherhood holier, and Christ more 
glorious, and Christians more devoted and trustful 
and worshipful. 

The GLORY-LIGHT and the angel-carol declare 
it to be a season of joy and of sacred song. Angels 
of God, roll your carols over the earth, and let 
them echo among the stars! Church bells, ring 
out a jubilee, and call the race to Christ! Sacred 
harps and organs, respond to the hand that sweeps 
your strings and flies over your keys, and turn this 
common air around us into praise! Church of 
God, take up the old doxology, first sung thou- 
sands of years ago in honor of the revealed Christ, 
and sing it anew with all thy might : 

" Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel: 
Who alone doeth wonders : 
Yea, blessed be His glorious Name forever ; 

And let the whole earth be filled with His glory, 
Amen and amen." 



XII. 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF YOUNG MEN IN OUR 
GREAT CITIES. 



XII. 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF YOUNG MEN 
IN OUR GREAT CITIES. 

" Then Daniel ptirposed in his heart that he would not defile him- 
self with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine tvhich he 
drank.'''' — Daniel i : 8. 

I WISH, as the introduction to my sermon, to 
relate the story of which the text forms a part, 
and, having related the story, I wish to draw from 
it some points for the elucidation of my theme. 
The story is an old one, but it is apropos to my 
topic. It is a tale of four young men, who, cent- 
uries ago, were lifted out of the quietude of their 
country homes and pushed right into the midst of 
the city life of Babylon, the metropolis of the world. 
And how did they sustain themselves ? That is what 
the story tells us. And what were their possibili- 
ties in Babylon? That also is what the story tells 
us. What they did in Babylon young men of their 
type can do in New York and Brooklyn, 

The story runs on this wise ; 

287 



288 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



During one of the early incursions of the Chal- 
dean army into Palestine it happened that four 
Hebrew youths were made captives and carried 
to Babylon. Their names were Daniel, Hananiah, 
Mishael, and Azariah. When they reached the 
great city they were placed in the king's palace, 
the most exposed circle in all the city. It was 
the custom in ancient times when one nation con- 
quered another nation to select sons from the con- 
quered nation and train them for positions of power 
at the seat of government. In this way the con- 
quering nations conciliated the conquered. In 
this way also they secured for themselves new 
talent, and strengthened the government. The 
sons chosen were usually young. They were lads 
from fourteen to seventeen. Such could easily be 
molded. Their prejudices were not strong enough 
to keep them from adopting the new nation as their 
nation. Daniel and his comrades were selected 
by the King of Babylon according to the custom 
of their times, and the ordinary results were ex- 
pected. But the very first chapter of the Book 
of Daniel begins by telling us that the results 
expected were not realized. Hebrew parents so 
trained their sons that when they reached the age 
of fourteen they were grandly confirmed in their 
fathers' religion, and in loyalty to their country. 
Daniel and his comrades stand as the exponents of 
the value of an early religious education. Though 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 289 

only in their teens, they thought for themselves 
and for themselves recognized what duty to God 
and country was. They knew, too, that duty, 
like God, is an ever-present thing. They argued 
that what was duty and principle in their Judaean 
home was duty and principle in the city of Baby- 
lon, and their reasoning was correct. Place does 
not affect or change duty. Conscience is not a 
thing confined to latitude or longitude. In every 
thing and in every place we should be conscien- 
tious. 

These young men carried with them constant 
reminders of their God and of their religion. Their 
names were such reminders. Their names were 
covenant names. They were compounded with 
the name of the Most High God, and were signifi- 
cant. Young men, we should make more of our 
covenant names than we do. Children of the 
Church, the names which you received in baptism 
should be a defense to you in the hour of tempta- 
tion. You should speak thus to your own hearts : 
" I have been named with the name of the blessed 
Trinity. I have a Christian name, and I will not 
dechristianize it by committing sin. Named by 
the name of the holy God, I must and I will keep 
myself pure for God." 

Realizing the power of a sacred name, the King 
of Babylon changed the names of these young 
men. He gave them names related to his heathen 



290 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



idols. Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah 
he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, 
Azariah he called Abed-nego. But these heathen 
names would not stick. Young as these four 
Hebrews were, Nebuchadnezzar was too late in 
making the change. Their true names were en- 
graven on their souls, and were all alive with the 
memories of their fathers' God and their mothers' 
faith. Besides this, they were written upon the 
crystal pages of the Lamb's Book of Life, the reg- 
ister of the everlasting covenant. 

The incident in the story which is especially 
brought before us, and which tests and sets off the 
character of these young men, is that which per- 
tained to the regulation of their diet — their con- 
duct in their boarding-house. Great care was 
taken of their diet. There was a special officer 
appointed to look after it. So anxious was the 
king for their growth and development, that he 
furnished their meals from the royal table. The 
best of the season was put before them. They 
were fed on luxuries. Wine, and seasoned meats, 
and brandied puddings, and spiced cakes, and con- 
fectioneries of all kind were on the table and within 
their reach. How hard it is to discipline a boy's 
appetite when sitting at a loaded table! How 
cruel the prohibitions of parents seem! Cracked 
wheat, and rolled oats, and simple bread and but- 
ter! These things are fairly despised in compar- 
ison with puddings, and pies, and pastries, and ices, 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 29 1 

and wine sauce, and candied grapes, and tutti 
frutti. Will these Hebrew boys eat the king's 
food ? Why not ? They have keen appetites, and 
their palates can appreciate these royal dainties. 
Besides, the king commands them to eat. Dis- 
obedience in the form of refusal to eat will render 
them liable to punishment. To decline will make 
them marked and peculiar. Will these Hebrew 
boys eat the king's food? Why not? There are 
a multitude of reasons why not. The food from 
the king's table has been set apart and consecrated 
to idols. To eat of it means to identify one's self 
with idols. Now, identification with idols is treason 
against the true God. Besides this, the regimen 
and menu of the king's table is contrary to the 
dietetic laws under which God has put the Hebrew 
nation. It contains food which God has pronounced 
ceremonially unclean. The question with these 
Hebrew boys was this : " Shall we act according 
to conscience, or shall we act according to appe- 
tite? Conscience or appetite? Which?" At 
once, and without a moment's hesitation, they an- 
swered : " We will act according to conscience." 
And according to conscience they did act. Give 
me young men who, when appetites and passions 
clamor for gratification, can call forth conscience 
and will and all the higher faculties of their higher 
nature and can issue the command, "Down, pas- 
sion/ down, appetite ! " 

These Hebrews the moment they were con- 



292 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



fronted by temptation registered at once a purpose 
of heart to resist it. They studied and weighed 
their situation and their duty, and out of their 
study grew an intelligent conviction. Into this 
conviction they put all the power of their will, and 
then won. My fellow-men, nothing is accom- 
plished apart from will power. We neglect duties 
for the most part simply because we do not will to 
do them, and do not put our will into them. Duty 
should always be married to resolve. 

We know their resolution. Let us see how they 
carried it out. It was met, as we would naturally 
surmise, by opposition. The head-officer to whom 
they communicated it greeted them with a " Tut, 
tut! it is nonsense, it is nonsense!" He pooh- 
poohed their theory as a boy's idea; and he said 
he could not entertain it for a single moment. If 
he allowed any infringement of the laws of the 
house or any disparagement of the king's table, 
he himself would suffer for it. He then tried to 
reason with them by telling them that their diet 
would show in their faces. They would be pale 
and haggard if they fed only on pulse and water. 
Their companions and competitors, with their ruddy 
cheeks and clear complexions, would shame them 
when they appeared before the king. Nothing 
daunted by a first refusal, they still pressed their 
case. They said, " Give us a trial of but ten days, 
and then compare us with our competitors." This 
method was so intensely practical and so fair that it 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 293 

could not be rejected. When the ten days were up 
their faces were put side by side with the faces of 
the king-fed, and they won the day. Cold water 
and plain food always defeat wine and sumptuous 
living. Their faces were the furthest possible re- 
move from the pimpled faces of the high livers. 
They were fair and shining. Besides this, they 
had in them the illumination of an honest heart 
and an approving conscience. They reflected 
the beauty of holiness. Thus it always is : the 
good stands a competitive examination, and wins. 
Moses floors Jannes and Jambres, and Daniel and 
his comrades excel the Chaldean astrologers, and 
the man of simple food outlives and outworks the 
wine-bibber and gormandizer. Daniel, we are 
told in this story, outlived whole dynasties. He 
remained in power while several successions of 
kings passed away. He treated his body well, 
and in this he did right; for the body is the 
temple of God through the indwelling of the 
Holy Spirit, and it is neither to be defiled nor 
maltreated nor neglected. We are to keep it in 
temperance and in soberness and in chastity ; we 
are to keep it from the heat of lust and from the 
wear of over- exertion. Viewed from any stand- 
point, the neglect of sanitary laws is a sin. Hygiene 
is an angel of God both to the soul and to the 
body. It means health of body and spirituality 
of soul. Among the crying wants of humanity 
to-day is better hygiene. Men want to eat less, 



294 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



and to eat fewer things. There are ten people in 
the city that are overfed to one person that is 
underfed. I say this not in the interest of those 
who keep our boarding-houses, for the Lord knows 
that if some of our young men have not meager 
enough diet it is not the fault of boarding-house 
keepers ; but I say it in the interest of those who 
sit at the table and who eat indiscriminately. I 
know Paul says, " Eat whatsoever things are set 
before you, and ask no questions; " but I know 
just as well that Paul, when he said that, was 
speaking of a free lunch, and at a free lunch that 
is the only mannerly thing to do. 

But let us hear the conclusion of the whole 
matter. The result of the stand for conscience 
which these young men took upon coming to 
Babylon, was this : it gave them a diet which 
proved conducive to study, health, and work, and 
it kept their minds clear and well-poised, and 
built up the whole man. Finally, when they 
appeared before the king to receive their com- 
missions for life, they excelled all who competed 
with them and were preferred by the king. They 
outranked all the wise men of the city, and took 
the highest places of the kingdom. Do you ask, 
What are the possibilities of young men when 
they come into the city ? This story answers, 
Everything good and great and grand is among 
their possibilities. The highest places in com- 
merce, and in the law, and in the ministry, and in 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 295 

medicine, and in the workshop, and in the state, 
are among their possibilities. They can, if they 
will, take the city, and hold the city, and control 
the city. Thus it was in Babylon, and what was 
possible in Babylon is possible in New York and 
Brooklyn. The same virtues succeed and rule in 
all ages and in all places. 

I am not alone in believing that if the young 
men in our cities will only be Daniels they can 
have Daniel's success. I have been talking with 
others upon this subject, and I find that this is the 
conviction of many. 

I asked one of the most prominent and most 
successful of our New York merchants the other 
day : " What can a young man coming from the 
country become in New York?" What do you 
think his reply was ? It was this : " I came into 
the city of New York a young man, and two thirds 
of the successful merchants in the city to-day 
came as I came." The essence of his answer was 
this : what the respected and influential and suc- 
cessful merchants of to-day have become, our 
young men who are entering upon life may be- 
come. A young man coming to the city and be- 
ginning life in the city is like a seed. We cannot 
see all that is in a seed. We must be instructed 
as to what is in it. Some one must take the 
acorn, for example, and plant it, and nurture it, 
and evolve from it the oak, and from the oak 
evolve the forest, before we can know how much 



296 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



is in the acorn. Even so some one must grow the 
young man that we may know what is in him. 

Our successful men of the city who in years 
gone by came from rural homes are the grand oaks 
in the human forest of to-day, and they show us 
the possibilities of the latest acorns come to town. 

I asked a leading citizen of Brooklyn : " Do you 
think that the chances of young men who come to 
our cities to-day are as good as the chances of 
young men were when you came to the city?" 
His reply was : " There are more young men in 
our cities now than there were when I entered life, 
but there are more young men needed. There 
are thousands of more places open to young men, 
and calling for young men." Then he continued : 
" We older men can live only so long, and when 
we go our places will be vacant for those who im- 
mediately press after us. You may count upon it, 
that in thirty years almost our entire population 
will have changed." This certainly means all the 
chances that young men could ask. Then he added 
confidentially : " Look at the young women in our 
homes. I tell you that fathers are on the lookout 
for young men who have the snap and the true 
metal in them, to act as trustees of their noble 
daughters and their fortunes. But mark you, they 
must be grand young men and good young men." 
Honesty requires me to say that this man had no 
daughters of his own. But I must add further that 
he was a sensible man, and I believe capable of judg- 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 29 J 

ing fathers who have daughters. He himself had 
certainly married according to the doctrine which 
he preached, for he spoke as a rich son-in-law. 
He said nothing of the mothers in our cities, he 
spoke only of the fathers. As a rule I imagine 
mothers are not as favorable to young men who 
have just come to town as fathers are. But what 
of this ? What moral is there in it ? This : Young 
men, begin your attentions and intentions with the 
mothers. Let them see the best that is in you. 
Win them, and then your call at the pastor's study 
will come as a matter of course. 

I asked another man, a Bostonian, a man who 
employs many young men, " Do you think that 
young men coming to the city can compete with 
rich men's sons who are city-born ?" His reply 
was quick and sharp : " Certainly. They not only 
can compete, but they can win. Rich men's sons 
lack self-reliance and grit and perseverance and 
economy. The Dandy Fifth is an exception. In 
employing young men, my preferences are two to 
one in favor of the young men who come to us." 
I asked, " What advice would you give young men 
as they start in life in our cities?" He replied: 
" First of all, I think I would tell them to use their 
patience, and to hold on to their position and their 
work like grim death." He gave as his reason for 
this advice the following : Young men have heard 
of fabulous wealth acquired at a single turn of the 
wheel, and they expect to get along too rapidly, 



298 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



and become rich too soon. Now if a man would 
make money lawfully he must give an equivalent 
for it. He must give as much of an equivalent in 
the city as he gives in the country. " Tell young 
men to be patient. Tell them not to leave their 
situations because everything is not precisely what 
they would wish, or because their employer be- 
comes unruly. Tell them that if they expect to 
rise they must work their way up inch by inch, and 
they must work long and work hard. Tell them 
that they must be patiently faithful in little things." 

Young men, there is a great deal of common 
sense in this advice. We are not willing to be 
patient and faithful in dealing with trifles, with 
little things. We want to be busy with large 
things. We want to flash, and soar, and be con- 
spicuous, and walk on mountain-tops. We want 
to be Niagaras, and have majestic sweep, and 
deafening roar, and white foam, and flashing rain- 
bows. We forget that the pathway to Niagara is 
from the single water-drop to the tiny spring which 
is almost invisible, and from the tiny spring to the 
trickling rill, and from the trickling rill to the bab- 
bling brook, and from the babbling brook to the 
river- branch, and from the river-branch to the 
river itself, and then down the broad channel of 
the river, gathering tributary and tributary, until 
at last the plunge is made over the high rocks. 
Becoming a Niagara means beginning with the 
little drop and moving gradually and grandly on 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 



299 



toward the vast body of water which leaps the 
rocks with foam and roar and sparkling rain- 
bows. 

But I must cease acting the reporter, and come 
back to the story of my text. It tells us that 
young men upon coming to our cities may, if they 
so will it, make the grandest success of their life 
in the city. They may reach the highest places 
in every department. Now the practical question 
comes : How ? I can only indicate two, or at 
most three, brief answers, and leave them with 
you for a further development. These answers 
are suggested by the story of the text. 

1. In the first place, success in our city comes to 
a young man through trueness to his character. 

And here let me say it is not the city, it is the 
man himself that is everything. The city is only 
the occasion calling out the man. If evil be in the 
man it will come out of him everywhere, country 
and city. All the evil of the world is not in the 
city. Let me give you a single item from my ex- 
perience. I was born in the city, and brought up 
in the city ; but when I reached the age of fifteen 
I left the city and went to a college in the country. 
I was a young man from the city. I was sent to 
the country for protection. But what I wish to 
relate is the first thing that happened to me upon 
going to the country. It was this : the first stu- 
dent whose acquaintance I made, a country youth 
three years older than myself, asked me to spend 



300 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



my first evening at college by going out to a farm- 
er's orchard to steal apples. Did I go? I did 
not. The farmer had a large dog. But I must be 
just to my first country acquaintance and tell you 
the full story of my relations with him. He is 
now in one of the leading pulpits of the city of 
New York. He came to New York when I was 
pastor there, and I went to hear him preach his 
first sermon. I had never heard him preach. I 
was a little late, so as I entered the church he was 
reading the Scripture lesson, and these were the 
first words which I heard from his lips as a 
preacher, the words of Paul : "Let him that stole, 
steal no more." His first words as a minister 
to me counteracted his first words as a fellow- 
student. 

The point which I want to make is this : the city 
is only the interpreter of a man. I cannot give 
you an exact diagnosis of a man in the quietness 
of a rural village. He is hemmed in by the senti- 
ment of his rural home. The eyes of all the com- 
munity are upon him, and he must walk straight. 
If he does not his business will leave him. Char- 
acter and cash depend upon his being, seemingly 
at least, a true man. There is no crowd there in 
which he can hide himself. I cannot tell whether 
he be acting out his true self or not. But let me 
watch that man as he lives one week in the city 
and I will diagnose his character for you. What 
does he wish most of all to see in the city ? What 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 30 1 

are the places which he frequents ? Who are the 
people with whom he strikes an acquaintance? 
What are the things which he avoids as he moves 
among people who know him not ? At what does 
he laugh? At what does he weep? For what 
does he spend his money ? Which is popular with 
him, the church or the theater, the prayer-meeting 
or the circus, the refined art- gallery or the show- 
window hung with the low prints of actresses 
photographed for carnal eyes? These are leading 
questions, and their answers reveal the man. 

How many young men come into our cities and 
go headlong to ruin ! They come from the pure 
atmosphere of a father's home, but no sooner do 
they reach here than they fling off all moral re- 
straint. They ally themselves with evil society, 
feed the gross appetites of their lower natures, 
give free rein to their desires. The result of all 
this you well know. Their whole being is soon 
demonized. They are early stricken with dire 
consequences. The flush of health leaves their 
faces, and, devitalized and consumptive, they go 
back to their homes to die. Ah ! this is sad, sad, 
very sad. But such cases occur every year by 
the hundreds. From hundreds of rural homes to- 
day the bitterest of curses are issued against the 
city because of the fall of noble sons. I do not 
wish to shield our cities against a single righteous 
curse ; every evil within the city should be cursed ; 
but I wish to be fair. I wish to set fact and truth 



302 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



before rural homes, and before young men from 
rural homes. Nine tenths of these ruined young 
men fell before they set foot in the city. They 
fell in their inner nature, in their secret longing, 
before they started from home. They fell spirit- 
ually in their father's house. Reading of the sinful 
pleasures of the city, they gloated over these in 
private, and lived with them in thought, and made 
these possible sins actualities by the power of im- 
agination in the secrecy of their own souls. When 
they came here the city only gave them an op- 
portunity to act themselves out. The city only 
made visible that which was invisible. I would 
ring it out through all the land to-day that the 
danger which besets young men in coming into 
the city begins in their far-away homes — begins 
in the plans which they make for sight-seeing 
before they receive their mother's good-by kiss. 
Young men, bring a true personality with you into 
the city, bring with you minds filled with holy re- 
solves, bring with you consciences which can de- 
tect and abhor sin, bring with you hearts that can 
compassionate the fallen and weep over them, bring 
with you the Christ- spirit, and the city will be for 
you a magnificent stage for a magnificent drama 
of life — a field for the culture of your higher 
nature, a sphere for the wide play of all your 
faculties, and an outlet into places of power and 
usefulness which the righteous God has every- 
where prepared for a righteous manhood, 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 303 

2. Success comes to a young man in the city 
only when he is true to himself and develops him- 
self. 

The development of self is a great work, and 
requires many things. 

It requires that you shall hold self to a strict 
account. 

Away from home, away from the restraints 
which were once thrown around you by loving 
friends, you must be a restraint to yourself. You 
must convert your liberty into loyalty. You must 
keep life under the inspection of conscience. Be 
severe with yourself; be rigid and conscientious 
even to the border of what the free-and-easy would 
call morbidness. Measure yourself by some high 
moral and spiritual standard, and say to your soul, 
" Soul, you must equal that." As a man, you 
have this wonderful power. You can go out of 
yourself, and picture yourself in the third person, 
and criticise yourself; you can say, when you do 
not like yourself : " I ought to be more than that. 
I ought to be better than that. I am misshapen, 
ill formed, undeveloped. I hate and detest that 
old self ; I will strive after the other and higher 
self, which as yet is only an ideal." You have the 
power to put yourself into helpful contrast with 
others who are better. 

Do you remember that wondrous book of Vic- 
tor Hugo's, where Jean Valjean, the escaped con- 
vict, meets with the old bishop, who lovingly talks 



304 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



to him, and breaks him down by his forgiveness? 
Do you remember how he contrasts himself with 
that affectionate and noble-hearted bishop, and 
then projects himself outside of himself and loathes 
and turns away from the old Jean Valjean, and 
determines to be something better than that ? It 
was because he did that that he became what he 
afterward was — the noble-hearted Jean Valjean, 
the mayor of the city, a man tender and true in 
every fiber of his being. 

The development of self requires that you shall 
have large faith in the possibility of the noble and 
the true in human life. 

Whenever I see a young man who has lost his 
ideals, and who is satisfied with a few face-quali- 
ties, who ceases to believe with all his might in 
anything, who has lost his faith in honor and in 
integrity and in virtue, I see a young man who is 
already lost. Every young man should have an 
Excelsior in his soul. There should be within him 
a sense of the possibility of incarnating the fine 
and the noble and the true. Young man, when 
you say that all men are a sham, and that there is 
nothing but the low and the selfish and the carnal 
and the untrue and the unchaste in the world, you 
tell your soul that which is not true ; and you for- 
ever fetter all your higher powers. Allow me to 
say to you that Jesus Christ was a reality, and 
that Jesus Christ in all His moral beauty and per- 
fection is this very day finding a thousand fac- 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 305 

similes in humanity. The belief in this is the first 
step toward your higher and better self. 

The development of self requires constant and 
ceaseless effort and sacrifice. So does every grand 
product. All the triumphs of genius and of moral 
being are the embodiments of hard, persistent 
work, and tension and sacrifice. If the harp wishes 
to fill the air with solemn and soul-stirring music, 
it must give up all of its strings to be so stretched 
that they will almost break. But out of this ten- 
sion and strain come delightful harmonies, and 
wave upon wave of rapturous sound. The music 
of a true Christian personality is like the ringing 
of the chimes of heaven on earth, and the striking 
of the harps of gold; but every faculty in the 
harp-nature of man must be keyed up to the con- 
cert pitch of heaven. Will, conscience, imagina- 
tion, reason, the faculty of emotion, the memory, 
all must be brought into accord with the perfect 
human nature of Jesus Christ. 

A Christian personality means effort. Yes, so 
does every grand product. Nothing can be 
achieved without work and expenditure. Every- 
thing costs. Light is the result of the burning of 
the candle. The rosy apple is the whole year of 
life lived by the tree. The golden flower is just 
so much expenditure of the sun. Everything that 
is worth an existence costs. It cost Angelo some- 
thing to construct the dome of St. Peter's. He 
had to build it up and tear it down in his mind ; 



306 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



rebuild it and modify it, before he could fling it 
abroad as a second sky. 

The development of self requires that you shall 
love, and love that which is good. 

You must get out of your own thoughts and 
feelings and sympathies, and live for something 
beyond yourself. I trust you have read, and so 
will remember, George Eliot's story of " Silas 
Marner." Silas Marner, disappointed and soured 
by the experience of his early life, becomes a her- 
mit miser. Bitter against all the world, life has 
no significance for him any longer, except as he 
can hoard up a little pile of gold, and so put him- 
self beyond the need of dependence and out of 
communication with his fellow-men. Every night 
he takes out the shining coins and comforts him- 
self by counting them over and over. Thus he 
does until at length one night a human waif, a 
little forsaken baby-girl, is thrown on his doorstep. 
This child he feels compelled to take in and give 
shelter, and to adopt as the child of his heart and 
of his care. As a result he comes again into con- 
tact with humanity, and is transfigured and made 
a man once more. He has something to love ; and 
love enlarges his soul. Young men, have some- 
body to love; somebody who is good and pure and 
inspiring. Love, for example, some noble young 
woman. If the love be reciprocated, you will be in- 
spired and lifted to a region in which you will rise 
higher and higher* No greater human power can 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 307 

come into a man's life than the power which ema- 
nates from the pure love of a noble woman — a love 
that penetrates as perfume does ; that never sleeps ; 
that divides every thought and every feeling ; and 
that turns service and hard work into pleasure. 
Such a love transforms and transfigures. Goethe 
hath well said : 

" The woman-soul leadeth 
Us upward and on." 

In the life of man there is first the soul of the 
mother ruling and leading, and then by and by 
there is the soul of the wife ; and the two together, 
the mother and the wife, make the man. It is the 
loving and loved woman that determines the man. 
The real man is the woman he carries in his heart. 
If she be an angel of a woman, she will make him 
an angel of a man ; but if she be a demon of a 
woman, she will make him a demon of a man. 
The letting of a noble woman's love into your life 
is like letting the sunbeam into the great clouds 
that float in the dome above. The sunbeam makes 
the vapory mass beautiful with its many delicate 
tints and burning hues. Never in life's experience 
is there a further remove from all that is earthly 
than when one soul reads all its destiny in another. 
It is not strange, therefore, that when Paul speaks 
of the union which consummates such love, he 
compares its mystery to that which unites the 
Church and Christ. 



3 o8 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Let a man love anything purely and disinterest- 
edly, and he will be a better man for that love — 
less selfish and more appreciative of the good. In 
preaching this I am not preaching a novelty, some- 
thing that I have discovered. This was known 
away back in the days of Socrates and Plato. 
Back there, men used to reason in this way about 
love : Let a man begin by loving one beautiful form, 
and from the love of the one he will rise to the 
love of many beautiful forms. From loving beau- 
tiful forms he will rise to the love of beautiful 
practices. From the love of fair practices he will 
rise to the love of fair ideas. From the love of 
fair ideas he will rise to the love of the person who 
thinks the fair ideas. From the love of the noble 
thinker, the magnificent woman, he will step over 
into eternal love and eternal friendship with God, 
the Creator of the magnificent woman, whose 
divine Spirit is the holy power within her, making 
her magnificent. The pathway of a noble woman's 
love is the pathway that leads to God. 

Only a few weeks ago I saw a simple illustration 
of this point which I am pushing. I was walking 
across the Boston Common behind a young couple 
in the full vigor of budding manhood and woman- 
hood. She was an art student, and he was an 
admirer of just such an art student. Gallantly he 
was carrying her books and utensils, and the two 
were earnestly conversing. As I passed them I 
overheard her say, " But there is a moral in 



YOUNG MEN IN GREAT CITIES. 309 

what you mean to do; you certainly wish to 
put your whole uprightness into it." That is all 
I heard, and I naturally looked into the face of 
the speaker. To use Bronson Alcott's phrase, it 
was " a solar face," and shone with purity and 
spiritual life. Back of her fine words the young 
woman put a winning smile ; and I could see that 
that smile, which expressed hope and confidence, 
and even admiration, sent her words to the very 
core of the young man's being. The flush that suf- 
fused his cheek told this. He was charged and sur- 
charged to the full with moral electricity. Good res- 
olutions fairly crackled in his finger-tips, and lofty 
purposes sparkled in his eyes. I said to the friend 
who was walking with me, "That was well said ; that 
good advice was effective. It was a sugar-coated 
pill, but he took it with evident relish from the fair 
one. I venture to affirm that if his father or even 
his mother had given him that lecture it would not 
have been received with half that grace." 

Oh the power of a noble woman with a noble 
conscience! Young women of America, by true- 
ness to your womanhood, keeping your personality 
holy and upright, living solely with the chaste and 
sweet, permitting in your presence only the high- 
est and the best, and indorsing only the upright 
and the noble, you can by your love and your con- 
science and your indorsement and your admiration 
capture the manhood of the land, and develop it, 
and sanctify it, and transfigure it, and make it loyal 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



and hold it loyal to all that is sublime and all that 
is God-like. There is nothing grander on God's 
earth than a young man through whose being the 
tide of a noble love is surging; who has all the 
susceptibility, the intensity, the tenderness, the 
passion of a fine nature ; who is just beginning to 
look out on the sweetness and beauty of life ; who 
is thrilled by all that is good and great in the 
world ; whose being is a delicate instrument played 
upon by all the touches of the immense universe, 
and which gives back in response the wondrous 
music of holy ambitions and God-like resolves. A 
young man in whose manhood reason is luminous, 
and self-respect is positive, and ideal is lofty, and 
honor and honesty and virtue and pure love are 
all in all — to such a young man all the city is open ; 
such a young man is in himself superior to all the 
forces that play in a city. He himself is a force 
above all earthly force. He will be a Joseph in 
the cities of Egypt; he will be a Daniel in the 
city of Babylon ; and by and by he will be a lumi- 
nous son of God in the city of the skies. 



XIII. 

INSECTS WITH WINGS, OR BEAUTIFIED 
SINS. 



XIII. 



INSECTS WITH WINGS, OR BEAUTIFIED 
SINS. 

"Every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you." — 
Deuteronomy 14: 19. 

The text is a precept from the dietetic and 
sanitary code under which God put His covenant 
people. The purpose of this code was one with 
that of the ritual of the tabernacle, viz., to teach 
and to beget holiness unto the Lord. It was not 
enough that the Hebrew be taught by the services 
of the tabernacle that " without holiness no man 
can see God." He did not live in the tabernacle; 
most of his life was spent outside of it. Outside 
of the tabernacle he needed also to be taught the 
very same lesson; so God wrote it on the creat- 
ures of nature. He filled earth and sea and air 
with symbols, all of which proclaimed to initiated 
ears the necessity of holiness. This brought God 
into the daily life of the Hebrew and made Him 
the center of that life. God worshiped in the 
church — that is good, but that is not enough. God 
313 



314 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



must fill the whole of life. God must be in our 
business ; God must be in our diet ; God must be 
in the care which we take of our bodies. Every- 
where, whatsoever we do must be done because it 
is right in His sight ; everywhere, whatsoever we 
refrain from doing must be refrained from because 
it is wrong in His sight. As the New Testament 
puts it : " Whatsoever therefore ye do, whether ye 
eat or drink, do all to the glory of God." 

This code reveals the jealous care of Jehovah 
over His people. In church and out of church, at 
home and abroad, asleep and awake, by day and 
by night, He regulates their habits and their prac- 
tices. He attends to their food and their clothing, 
and He prescribes for their most secret life. He 
overlooks nothing which in anywise affects the 
well-being and the purity of those in whose midst 
He desires to dwell. To one out of covenant and 
out of sympathy with God this would be an intol- 
erable burden. To have God about his path by day 
and beside his bed by night would be a restraint 
beyond endurance ; but to a lover of holiness and 
to an admirer of God nothing could be more de- 
lightful. 

The object of this code is to promote holiness. 
Now one way of helping to holiness is a right care 
of the body, with its surroundings and its diet. 
The body is the organ of the spirit. It is in these 
bodies of ours that our spiritual, reasoning, loving, 
hoping, striving self dwells. Our bodily faculties 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 



315 



are the instruments of our spiritual activities. We 
must take care of these, clothe them properly and 
feed them properly. There is no plainer truth 
than this, viz., the way we treat our bodies affects 
our spiritual activities. Right food is conducive to 
right soul-life. Food has a wider influence than we 
think. Many a man is less devout, less useful, less 
excellent and admirable in heart and life, than he 
might be because of the unguarded way in which 
he eats and drinks. We may be neither gluttons 
nor drunkards, yet we may lower our character and 
lessen our influence by our ill-regulated appetite. 
We should be as careful in feeding our bodies as 
we are in feeding our souls. Food in both cases 
tells for good or for bad. 

But it is not my purpose at this time to expound 
the dietetic and sanitary code which God gave the 
Hebrews ; it is my purpose only to notice that this 
code had another characteristic besides the dietetic 
and sanitary. In the education of the Hebrews it 
had a symbolic characteristic. " It is only when 
we regard these ceremonial distinctions as symbol- 
izing great spiritual truths that we find a safe and 
consistent theory to guide us in their interpretation. 
They were, up to a certain point, sanitary and 
dietetic. True, but they were also intended for 
the instruction of the soul in the distinctions be- 
tween moral good and evil." In an age when 
book-teaching was unknown, every day's absten- 
tion from certain sorts of food was a constant 



3i6 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



teaching by symbolic object-lesson of the necessity 
to be watchful against any contact with or partici- 
pation in sin. 

The text is a pointed illustration of the symbolic 
character of the code. It carries in it a moral and 
religious lesson. It strikes at popular evils and at 
sins in high places. It warns against evil in the 
forms of gilded fascinations. It is a divine pro- 
test against admired and cultured evil, evil which 
sparkles and shines. It points out the kinship of 
all such evil to evil that is gross and vulgar. It 
proclaims the moral identity of all sin — the genteel 
and the shabby, the cultured and the crude, the 
attractive and the repulsive, the scientific and 
the ignorant, the poetical and the prosaic, the 
refined and the base. All sin is of the same 
principle; it differs only in manner and degree. 
We need to be told this over and over, in order 
that we may be put on our guard against sin 
in its most dangerous and effective and subtle 
forms. This is what the text tells us. It raises 
the alarm against creeping things with wings — 
i.e., against evils adorned, and against Satan when 
he shines. 

There is a natural disgust in every one to the 
idea of eating, or even handling, a creeping worm 
or caterpillar. However difficult this feeling may 
be to analyze, God has given it to the race for 
some purpose. The use which this code makes 
of it shows its purpose, viz. : All things which are 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 



317 



abhorrent to the human instinct — things which we 
call repulsive and disgusting — are so many indica- 
tions of the great truth that we are to make clear- 
cut and sharp distinctions between clean and un- 
clean, between good and evil, and between right 
and wrong. 

This natural instinct of which we speak, God 
saw fit to incorporate in His law to His people. 
He forbade their eating these repulsive, crawling 
things. Instinct was not enough ; there must be 
instinct with a plus — instinct plus God's law. We 
know how the natural instinct is often overcome 
by willful habits. We find degraded men taking 
pleasure in articles of food which the human palate 
originally and instinctively rejected. Hence the 
necessity of a law behind instinct. In supporting 
instinct by a law, as He does here, God teaches us 
that although in conscience we may shrink from 
gross sins, yet gradually we may so blunt con- 
science that we will indulge in the very sins we 
formerly abhorred. The protests of natural con- 
science are not sufficient as the guide of life ; we 
need the divine law as our guide. No man ever 
began his career as a thief, or a murderer, or a 
debauchee. He despised such a style of life, as 
each of us naturally loathes a slimy worm; but 
sin so wrought in him that he began to shrink less 
and less from these gross sins, and at last he be- 
came enamoured of them. The words of the poet 
will always be true ; 



318 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



" Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, 
That to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
But seen too oft, familiar with its face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

If sin in its grossest form be thus dangerous, 
what must be the unmeasured power of sin when 
it disguises itself and puts on the robes of beauty 
and the forms and shapes of virtue and art and 
science and progress — when it enthrones itself in 
fashion and in the palace of wealth, and when it 
claims the authority of antiquity ? Sin as a cater- 
pillar is bad enough; but sin as a butterfly is a 
thousand times worse. It is sin captivating the 
eye and winning the admiration of the whole race. 
The text is a warning to the men and women who 
are in love with immoral butterflies. It deals, not 
with gross and vulgar sinners, but with refined and 
elegant sinners ; with those who lead society and 
give tone to public sentiment. These detest the 
crawling worm most heartily ; their refinement is 
such that all sins in gross forms repel them ; but 
alas ! they are repulsive, not because they are sin, 
but because they are gross. Their abstinence from 
sins in gross forms is not because of their love of 
God or their desire for holiness, but simply the 
result of a fastidious eclecticism. It is the result of 
aesthetic taste, and not of moral taste. The text 
teaches that these are sinners as truly as the most 
vulgar. They are alienated from God. They 
disregard and disobey His laws. They have no 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 319 

sympathy with His cause. They ignore His holy 
Word. They set their hearts on earthly things, 
and, like the rich man of the parable, make earth 
their heaven. 

Often a refined and educated person in this god- 
less condition thinks he is very pure because he 
avoids gross sins. He says, like the Pharisee, 
" God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men 
are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this 
publican." But he neither knows what God is nor 
what sin is. The creeping thing which his refine- 
ment has rejected has been furnished with pretty 
wings, and now he loves it. The nauseous cater- 
pillar has dressed itself up as a beautiful butterfly, 
and in this form he sports with the creature. But 
what does God's law say? This: "Every creep- 
ing thing that flieth is unclean unto you." The 
wings and pretty colors have not altered the nature 
of the vermin. The same uncleanness is there as 
before. 

For example, to give my thought a practical 
turn : The cunning with which the refined mer- 
chant gets off his damaged goods on another, or 
gets a false price by sly representation, is as sinful 
in God's sight as the plundering of a jewelry store 
by a common burglar and sneak-thief. In one 
case the ugly sin has the pretty wings which a 
false system of trade puts on it, but in the other 
case its ugliness is not disguised. The falsehoods 
of refined society which form the staple of a fash- 



320 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



ionable woman's conversation are just as disgusting 
to pure souls as the broad lies fa 1 * which this fash- 
ionable woman dismisses her servant with horror 
at her untruthful character. " How many there 
are who would shrink with dismay from over-sen- 
suality, and yet will in their private reading gloat 
over a licentious novel! " It is the very same 
crawling thing, only now it has pretty wings. 

We should learn that sin has a wonderful power 
to change its appearance. We shall never be ready 
for life until we do so learn ; we shall never feel the 
importance of cultivating the discriminating fac- 
ulty which God has put within us ; we shall never 
feel the necessity of going to God for our definitions 
of sin and for a description of the true inwardness 
of sin. We must be told what sin is by the One 
who has omniscient eyes and who looks evil through 
and through. The power of sin to change and to 
beautify itself is like that of the caterpillar to 
change itself into a butterfly circling and soaring 
in the crystal atmosphere of the great dome. 

For the purpose of impressing upon my mind 
the beauty of the butterfly I read a volume lately 
written by a popular entomologist with this as my 
sole objective point. I found this in my reading, 
that the beauty of this winged creature bears the 
scrutiny of the most powerful microscope. The 
more the searching light is poured upon it, the 
greater its beauty shines out. It far transcends 
the beauty of any man-made thing. It has been 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 



321 



compared to the rich mosaic built by human skill ; 
but the comparison soon ceases to be a comparison 
and speedily becomes a contrast of the most strik- 
ing kind. It is said that the finest modern mosaic 
picture contains as many as eight hundred and 
seventy tesserae, or separate pieces, to the square 
inch of surface, and we marvel at this ; but upon 
the same small space of a butterfly's wing the en- 
tomologist has counted no less than one hundred 
and fifty thousand separate glittering scales, each 
scale carrying in it a gorgeous color beautiful and 
distinct. 

Who can follow nature's pencil and chisel and 
brush as these work upon the wings of a butterfly ? 
On every wing there is a picture as varied as the 
rainbow. Every wing is iridescent with different 
lights that shift and change. Here are patches of 
blue, and spots of purple, and lines of green and 
aurelian and red. Each wing is checkered and 
veined like an exquisite piece of Parian marble. 
It is speckled and mottled, flecked and tinted. 
Here are magnificent comminglings of colors, and 
these are rich and harmonious in tone. Here are 
fringes of snow-white, and waves of crimson, and 
whole chains of little crescents. Here is graceful 
elegance, and here is comely shape. Here is 
masterful tinting, and tipping, and gilding, and 
flecking. Here are all the glories of the sunbeam 
broken up into prismatic beauties. The wing of 
the highest-typed butterfly is the work of God, 



322 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



" to whom an atom is an ample field." The poets 
call the butterfly " the child of the sun," " a flying 
and flashing gem," " a flower of Paradise gifted 
with the magic power of flight." They tell us 
that its wings are as rich as the evening sky, and 
that they expand and fold with a silent ecstasy. 

I want to magnify the transmutation of the cat- 
erpillar into the butterfly. I want to set into prom- 
inence the great contrast between the crawler 
and the flyer, the creeping worm on the leaf and 
the creature springing from the chrysalis to sport 
in the sunshine. I want every attractive feature 
of this "child of the sttn," as the poet calls it, to 
shine out and thrill. And why? That I may 
make clear the point of the text, and remind you 
that the butterfly is only a caterpillar beautified 
with wings. It is only a painted worm, decked 
in a velvet suit and adorned with sparkling gems. 
The swallow which moves on larger and swifter 
wings knows this. It recognizes the worm in the 
midst of the beauty. When it is out in search of 
food for its nestlings, with keen eye it searches for 
the butterfly, and with a wicked swoop it darts 
down upon it, and seizes it, and flies home, crying 
to its brood, "/ have caught a worm." Worms 
on wings are as good to it for food as worms crawl- 
ing on leaf or ground. 

Egg and caterpillar and butterfly, the three 
forms of this creature's existence, are one and of 
the same nature. The forms are different, but the 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 



323 



essences are the same and identical. I want to 
make the beauty of the symbol as striking as 
possible, that the lesson taught by it may be as 
striking as possible. I care for the butterfly, but 
I care for it only as it speaks to me of the power 
of Satan to transform himself into an angel of light, 
and of the power of sin to make itself attractive, 
and of the power of error to deck itself in robes 
that resemble the robes of truth, so that even the 
very elect of God are in danger of being deceived. 

Let us see how sin popularizes and beautifies 
itself. This will help us to keenness in the discern- 
ment and the detection of sin. The great desider- 
atum with the multitudes is just this : they do not 
recognize sin when they meet it. 

1 . Sin beautifies itself by assuming and wearing 
the wings of wit. 

Wit can be just as wicked as it pleases, and yet 
be popular. To be witty is all the excuse that 
evil finds necessary for its being. There is a per- 
fect craze for a joke, and there is no form in which 
sin and the devil so frequently enter the best 
society. 

We all know the power of wit in making an 
out-and-out lie acceptable to a community, and in 
giving it currency. Men abhor a bungling, stum- 
bling lie ; but let the same lie cleverly incarnate 
itself in a joke and fill itself with laughing humor, 
let it get some one to tell it admirably, and at once 
it becomes popular. Men are proud to repeat it. 



324 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



They circulate it for the pleasure which it gives. 
It is an illustration of the fine art of lying. It is 
dramatic. They are so taken up in admiring the 
exquisite dexterity of the form in which it is told, 
that they never think of hating its immoral sub- 
stance. But it is a lie all the same, and its untruth, 
and its unchaste thought, soaring and flying around 
society upon the merry ripples of laughter, do 
their fatal work with a greater deadliness than the 
vulgar lie that goes about condemned in its native 
unadorned deformity. 

Wit for the most part is the instrument which 
genius uses in working out its evil nature. Byron 
and Burns and' Shakespeare clothe their impure 
and wicked thoughts in the language of wit. In 
the garments of wit their bad thoughts sparkle for 
very brightness. To such an extent is this true, 
that we have to argue for expurgated editions 
of Byron and Burns and Shakespeare and Goethe. 
I was astonished to come across this sentiment in 
a recent book of one of our best writers, viz., that 
the old classics, the Iliad, Odyssey, ^Eneid, the 
dramas of ^Eschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, the 
fables of ^Esop, the Lives of Plutarch, and the his- 
tories of Herodotus and Thucydides and Xenophon 
and Livy, are more wholesome companions for our 
youth than the unexpurgated editions of Pope or 
Dryden or Byron or Shakespeare or Goethe. But 
how come the questionable paragraphs and verses 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 



325 



and lines into these modern classics of ours ? They 
come in the garb of wit, and in this form they re- 
ceive an audience because they glow and please 
and fascinate. It is the duty of the Christian to 
clip the wings of wit when genius uses them as an 
adornment for the immoral caterpillar. It is the 
duty of Christians to buy only and read only ex- 
purgated editions. 

2. Sin beautifies itself by assuming and wearing 
the wings of fashion. 

Whatever fashion prescribes is law. Whatever 
is in fashion needs no defense or argument. For 
example, fashion prescribes dress, and sometimes 
the boldness of the attire which it prescribes is 
administrative of evil, but the dress obtains. Un- 
fashionable people may find fault, but fashionable 
people, never. They give no thought to the 
morals of a dress. It has come from a fashionable 
establishment and a fashionable price has been 
paid for it, and there is no ground for any exercise 
of thought or of conscience. I beg the pardon of 
fashion, but there is ground for both thought and 
conscience ; and there is a personal responsibility 
to be met here. The fashionable establishment 
sins every time it sends out an immoral costume, 
that is true ; but more than that, the woman of 
society every time she dons the costume condones 
and indorses and beautifies the sin of the establish- 
ment, and gives it permanency and life and cor- 



326 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



rupting power. There is no carnal power in all 
the world so mighty as a beautiful woman of fash- 
ion arrayed in a carnal dress. 

For example, fashion prescribes the mode in 
which we shall live ; it determines the rate of our 
expenses. In our day it has put the stamp of its 
approbation upon extravagance of living; and we 
Christian people fall into the line of the common 
life. There is a fascination in extravagance. An 
abundance which abounds and superabounds de- 
lights and attracts. But is it right ? Is it right to 
pile up twenty dinners one upon another and call 
that a single meal? There is a point of morals 
here. This abundance and superabundance ener- 
vates the whole man. It pampers self and begets 
selfishness — a refined selfishness, yes ; but selfish- 
ness nevertheless. Even a refined selfishness nar- 
rows a man and begets in him a shallow conception 
of life. There are moral consequences involved in 
an extravagant life. It cannot be kept up with- 
out money, and where money is needed there is 
always a temptation to dishonesty and crooked 
methods. It engenders worldliness, and is world- 
liness itself. Now living for this world, and noth- 
ing more, draws away all the sap from the spiritual 
roots of a man's being. There is a sacrilegious 
wrong when the sap of so much social benefit is 
concentrated in the flowering of a selfish luxury. 
If there be gross vice in the lower classes because 
of the energy of passion, there is among the upper 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 327 



classes an accomplished epicurism, and a fastidious 
voluptuousness, and a strain of vanity which rots 
as it shines! I admit that where a man has 
means there is a place for refinement, and for a 
mansion, and for a banquet, and for elegant apart- 
ments, and for parlors that shall be studios of 
aesthetic beauty, and that shall breathe the inspira- 
tion of sculpture and painting. I admit that there 
is a lawful place for these ; but I want to say that 
in this day of sharp and painful contrasts in human 
society, when ignorance stands face to face with 
scholarship, when the overfed look into the pinched 
and despairing faces of the underfed, when the 
occupants of mansions walk the same streets with 
the occupants of disease-breeding tenements, there 
is a divine limit to these. I am not going to place 
the limit, I am only going to say that any right- 
minded, generous humanitarian, any Christian gov- 
erning himself by the love and example of Christ, 
can find that limit when he wishes to find it. I 
wish to say this also, that there is a special dan- 
ger besetting the heart shut in by gilding and 
velvet and banquet : there is danger lest it shall 
not feel the electricity of the common humanity ; 
there is danger lest it shall not hear the woes of 
life or see the ghastliness of evil ; there is danger 
lest it be separated in thought and sympathy from 
the great multitudes, and be too far away from the 
jar of crime and the cry of complaint. No Chris- 
tian should let the extravagance of fashion so sep- 



328 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



arate him from his fellow-men, whom God has 
commissioned him to help, that he cannot know 
their wants or sympathize with their needs. 

3. Sin beautifies itself by putting on the wings 
of art. 

When sin would become tolerable, it comes to 
art and asks it to embellish it. When art has 
given it graceful forms and the witchery of color, 
it knows that it will be sought and admired. It 
knows that its suggestive carnality can find ingress 
into the soul through a picture and a statue when 
it can find ingress and opportunity for work in no 
other way. The realism of art has introduced 
more animalism into humanity than any other 
instrumentality. It has opened an avenue into 
the deepest depths of the soul for all manner of 
foul thoughts. Sin in the beauties of art is evil 
dressed in such a way that men cannot hate it. It 
is the harlotry of wickedness. No propagator of sin 
should call out more our honest red-hot scorn than 
the corrupt artist, or the corrupt poet, or the cor- 
rupt musician, who sells his skill and genius for the 
purpose of making evil thought enchanting. When 
an old heathen like Horace sings of love in such 
a way as to corrupt the very notion of love, we 
may find some argument of compassion in the fact 
that he was a heathen; but when a Hemrich 
Heine, with extraordinary wit and with most ex- 
traordinary wickedness, defiles with his fine touches 
the very interior nerve and nature of love, one can- 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 



329 



not heat the indignation which one expresses too 
hot. A white heat is too mild a heat to do justice 
to deserved scorn. 

Art is the popular thing of the age. The world 
has more artists and more art schools now than it 
ever had before. It is fashionable to be posted in 
art. Every one who knows anything must be a 
critic in art and a lover of art. Sin recognizes 
this, and seeks through art an open door into 
thousands of homes and lives. In the name of 
art people go to the playhouse to witness the per- 
formances of actors of questionable character. In 
the name of art they fill their parlors with bathing 
nymphs and demi-monde scenes, which give rise 
to thoughts that are not Christian. I ask the ques- 
tion : Is it right for those who are washed in the 
blood of Christ, and who seek the sanctifying in- 
fluences of the Holy Spirit, to enter willfully into 
a social life where books and pictures and statuary 
and entertainments are unblushingly promotive of 
the growth of the lower man? Is it right to be- 
come accustomed to things which cause us to lose 
our Christian delicacy and reserve? Be assured 
that all thinking that is bad or impure dulls the 
edge of moral delicacy, and be assured also that 
the results are one and the same whether the soiled 
thought be suggested by the daub in the house of 
death, or by the masterpiece in the salon. In art, 
let us choose idealism and not realism. Let us see 
to it that the statuettes on our brackets, and the 



330 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



statues on our pedestals, and the books of engrav- 
ings on our tables, and the pictures on our walls 
shall be as pure in God's sight and as promotive of 
holiness as the prayers which we offer at our fam- 
ily altars. I argue for chaste sounds, and chaste 
colors, and chaste forms. These, to my mind, are 
the essentials of true art, as true art is approved 
by the laws of our holy God. 

4 . Sin beautifies itself by putting on the wings 
of pleasing and attractive names. 

It decks itself in the beauties of euphemisms. It 
studiously robes itself in the robes of a poetic and 
a moral nomenclature. This has always been the 
method of sin, and it seems to be necessary to its 
success. It calls good evil and evil good, and in 
this way sears the conscience. It blackens the 
white and whitens the black. It stigmatizes 
" conscientiousness " as "morbidness," and it calls 
"dissipation" "good-fellowship." It thus blurs 
the distinction between right and wrong, and 
wrong and right. It thus crucifies a good thing 
by a bad name, and resurrects and dignifies a bad 
thing by a good name. It calls " silence with re- 
gard to evil " shrewdness," " tact." To speak 
would offend. It should call such " silence" " trea- 
son " and "cowardice." 

Perhaps in no sphere in life are the wings of 
a false nomenclature so widely spread as in the 
mercantile sphere. All manner of dishonesty is 
beautified and glossed over by euphemisms. It 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 



331 



is very often the case in business that the intellect 
of a man is keener than his moral sense. " It is 
hard for the man with the dollar-and-cent concep- 
tion of the universe to read the Decalogue straight 
through the double lens of a twelve-per-cent. inter- 
est or of a fifty-per-cent. profit In business many 
a man sets up a standard that slants considerably 
from the divine perpendicular." And yet things 
sound well as he describes them in mercantile 
terms. He lets himself down softly. " He refers 
to forgery as ' skilled penmanship.' He calls in- 
genious prevarication by the euphemistic title ' a 
white lie.' A white lie! That only reveals that 
the man who made it is a practiced and cultivated 
liar — a liar by trade. Reckless and dishonest 
speculation with other people's money he calls 
' enterprise.' What right has any man to put 
another's money into fearful risk? Your venture 
may accidentally turn out well, and you may be 
able to pay him what you owe him, still it is dis- 
honesty. To be honest through a fortunate acci- 
dent is not to be honest at all." Business men, 
be assured it is a great sin to disregard, or even 
to underrate in the least degree, the eternal dis- 
tinction between right and wrong ; it is a great sin 
to view things in their wrong aspects and call things 
by their wrong names. " To give vice the names 
of virtue is a betrayal of God and a playing into 
the hands of the devil. Sin is throned and crowned 
and titled by leniency and circumlocution and dig- 



332 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



nified names." I beseech you, be not deceived. 
Abhor sin. Believe in virtue, believe in truth, be- 
lieve in honesty, believe in honor, believe in God, 
believe in God's law, and believe in God's provi- 
dence. 

My fellow- men, I ask you to consider the value 
of using right and natural and simple names in 
dealing with sin. Notice this fact : 

The real and trite name of sin is the best expose 
of sin. 

There is much in a name. A true name of sin 
is a picture of sin — a striking and vivid image of 
sin. It strips off its seductiveness and sets in the 
light its grossness. It robs it of half of its power 
by making it accurately known. Notice this fact : 

The real and true name of sin is the best pro- 
tector and the best educator of our moral sense. 

" Conversation is educational, and the words 
which we use to communicate ideas fix these ideas 
firmly in the mind. By right words we want to 
fix right ideas in our souls. A fit name not only 
keeps distinct things that differ, but it keeps the 
snarl out of our ideas of things. A certain amount 
of distinct thinking is necessary for the maintenance 
of a conscience that shall work properly and speak 
definitively. We can play with words, but words 
will take their turn and play with us. An ambig- 
uous word given to a bad thing saps from the bad 
thing its essential ugliness. For the education of 
the conscience ' lie ' is better than ' prevaricate ' ; 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 



333 



' adultery ' is better than ' conjugal infidelity ' ; and 
the word ' theft ' is better than ' defalcation ' ; it 
cuts closer to the marrow. The safest and best 
words are those which bring us most directly to 
the facts. If we want to keep good and evil apart 
from each other in our acts, we must keep them 
distinct in our thoughts. Now distinct thinking 
waits upon precise and honest wording." Notice 
this fact : 

The real and true name of sin is the best organ for 
the expression of a righteous indignation against sin. 

The expression of indignation against sin is the 
crying demand of our age. There is altogether 
too much smiling upon sin and apologizing for sin. 
Soft names are too plentiful. We see this in the 
way men deal with " the devil," the impersonation 
of all evil. Hosts of people stammer at his name. 
To say " the devil " sounds harsh and flat and vul- 
gar to some. The name has in it something that 
makes them shrink. So they introduce substitutes. 
They weave wit and good-fellowship into the ap- 
pellatives which they use. They speak of him as 
" His Satanic Majesty," or they name him famil- * 
iarly "The Old Boy," or they call him "The D," 
using the first letter of his name. This is a straw, 
but it shows the direction of the popular wind. It 
is a coquetting with the devil. It is a putting out 
of the fire of indignation which should always burn 
in the soul against the Evil One who has cursed 
and is still cursing our world and our race. 



334 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



" The age of clear, free, grand speech is dead. 
We have come to the age of euphemisms. Sen- 
tences are uttered in such a way that nobody can 
quote them. They are so rounded and oiled that 
it is impossible to retain them in one's grip. The 
old grit has been lost ; the old free piercing speech 
is gone, and we have fallen upon silken times. 
The popular preacher is the gentle, quiet, soothing, 
contemplative, almost silent preacher. His sermon 
is like a melodious Psalm, such as Peace would sing 
in a garden of flowers. It trembles and quivers 
with the softest notes. We hate the reformer, 
whose lips are iron-bound, and whose voice is like 
the shock of the tempest." But this is our mis- 
take, for we are still living in a world of destruc- 
tive sin. God calls us this day back to His Book 
that we may learn how to speak of evil, and that 
we may school ourselves in the right nomenclature 
of sin. When His Church and His people speak 
of evil He wants them so to speak that men will 
feel He is speaking through them ; He wants them 
to use words which are vivid pictures of sin, and 
which carry in them a fiery indignation of soul 
that has the power to scathe and burn to ashes all 
injustice and all wickedness. He wants them to 
use language which will call out antipathy to sin 
rather than pity for sin or condolence with the sin- 
ner. There is one supreme thing which God seeks 
to set forth with the clearness of the noonday be- 



INSECTS WITH WINGS. 



335 



fore the immortal soul, and that is : all sin is un- 
clean ; all sin is abhorrent ; all sin is deadly. 

In closing allow me to say that the chief thing 
which we all need to reach is God's idea of sin. 
Have we God's idea of sin? Do we know its 
nature, do we know its awful consequences ? We 
must know these things if we are ever to take the 
right attitude toward sin. How can we know 
these? There is only one way, but that one way 
is all-sufficient. It is this : full and complete fel- 
lowship with Jesus Christ, the pure and holy Son 
of God. We must let Christ so into our lives that 
we shall be able to look at all things through His 
eyes. He who looks at sin through Christ's eyes 
knows what sin is. Association with Him quick- 
ens one's sensitiveness to its presence. His tuition 
brings into prominence the spirituality of sin and 
teaches that it is not necessarily an overt act or a 
visible movement ; it is often a thought, a play of 
imagination, a volition. In the harsh and unjust 
thought is the principle of manslaughter. His criti- 
cisms upon the popularities and conventionalities 
of the best society train one to look under the 
masks of beauty and etiquette and skill of art and 
glamour of fashion, and see the real and the con- 
trolling power, viz., the spirit of sin. 

There are searching revelations of sin in Christ's 
life and in Christ's words ; but the highest revela- 
tion of all is in Christ's cross. In the cross sin has 



336 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



grown to its harvest ; it has come to its full fruit- 
age. What a brood of black things are gathered 
about the cross ! Sin made the cross a necessity. 
Sin erected the cross. Sin drove the cruel cruci- 
ficial nails. Sin crushed the crown of thorns into 
the holy temples of the Christ. Sin poised and 
thrust the murderous spear. Sin extorted the 
orphan cry. In the cross you see the tremendous 
daring of sin : it is not afraid to strike at the very 
heart of God. Now remember, all sin is one — the 
same in nature and in essence. It differs only 
in degree and manner of manifestation. Calvary 
strips the human world of all its masks. It un- 
covers it and reveals the depth of its wickedness. 
It throws sunlight on that black and foaming ocean 
of sin on which souls are borne to ruin. Philoso- 
phers, I cannot accept of your apologies for sin. 
Poets, I cannot appreciate the gorgeous drapery 
you throw over sin. Artists, I deplore the varnish 
and the tinsel with which, in this age of civiliza- 
tion, you attempt to embellish sin. 

In the light of Calvary I see sin in all its forms 
to be bitter, uncompromising antagonism to God. It 
is the one thing of all things from which the im- 
mortal soul must be freed if it is ever to become 
God-like, and if it is ever to reach its possible goal, 
and if it is ever to unfold its inherent beauties 
throughout the ages of a happy eternity. 



XIV. 

PRAYER FOR INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. 



XIV. 



PRAYER FOR INSTRUCTION IN 
ARITHMETIC. 

"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts 
unto wisdom." — Psalm 90: 12. 

LOOKED at in one aspect, human life is a math- 
ematical problem. It is a sum in arithmetic. It 
is an example in simple addition. This being so, 
there is nothing more important than arithmetic. 
Arithmetic has a large place and play in the world. 
Because of its place and play it is our duty to 
master it. The study of arithmetic is not an idle 
thing. When we set our children at the task of 
learning figures, we are doing a great work for 
them. When we instruct them in simple enumer- 
ation, when we teach them to count 1, 2 } 3, 4, 5, 
6, 7, 8, 9, 10; when we teach them the table of 
decimals, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 — we 
are giving them the means by which they can es- 
timate the duration of their earthly existence, upon 
which hang the momentous interests of eternity. 

The table of numerals and decimals is a wonder- 
ful thing. It is like the alphabet. Take the Greek 
alphabet with its twenty-four letters, or symbols. 
339 



34Q 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Can you estimate its value? Can you tell what 
it has done for the world ? It has given visibility 
to the invisible realm of thought. It has brought 
human language under control. It has given the 
creations of Homer an earthly immortality. It 
has kept the orations of Demosthenes alive. It 
has given Paul a perpetual personality and power. 
It has introduced Jesus Christ Himself to the gen- 
erations of men, and has caused His heavenly rev- 
elations to ring with power and thrill with joy 
down the ages. The alphabet! There is no 
greater blessing possessed by mankind than the 
simple alphabet. It has linked age with age, and 
era with era, and soul of man with soul of man. 
It is the storehouse of human thought. It is the 
golden casket which carries in it the precious gem 
of divine speech. It is the chariot of God in which 
eternal truth and infinite love ride. 

Like the alphabet is the table of numerals and 
decimals. It carries in it all that is wonderful in 
mechanics and all that is great and serviceable in 
the sciences. By means of it men lay hold of the 
powers of nature, and tabulate them and handle 
them, and harness them to human enterprises. 
By it men deal with the wonderful works of God, 
and analyze them and master them. What the 
alphabet is in the world of mind, the table of nu- 
merals and decimals is in the world of matter. 

Arithmetic is an essential to man. Without it 
he can do nothing, but with it he can do many 



INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. 34 1 

wonderful things. Take, for example, the con- 
struction of the American watch, which you carry 
in your pocket. It is a rival of the moving worlds 
in the solar system. But that wonderful piece 
of mechanism constructed by man is constructed 
wholly upon the principles of arithmetic. The 
cogs of the wheels are all counted, and they are 
increased or decreased proportionately as they are 
intended to mark hours or seconds. The watch is 
constructed and adjusted according to the laws of 
horology. This story is told of a certain American 
watch which passed through the hands of nearly 
all the jewelers of the city. I tell it in order to 
exalt the value of arithmetic. "The watch failed 
to keep accurate time. It was taken from one 
jeweler to another that it might be made to keep 
step with the motions of the earth and sun and 
stars. All who examined it pronounced it per- 
fect; but nevertheless none of them could make 
it keep time. One perplexed watchmaker, more 
thorough by nature than his fellows, determined 
to find the flaw. For this end he counted the 
cogs in every wheel in the watch, and at last he 
found that there was one wheel which lacked one 
cog of the proper number. That solved the mys- 
tery. All the watchmakers in the universe could 
not make a watch keep step with the stars when 
one cog was missing from one of its wheels." Man 
in order to construct a perfect work must be an 
arithmetician. 



342 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



To see the value and importance of arithmetic 
we must look into the works of God. God works 
mathematically. God is the great and infinite 
mathematician. Hence this inspired prayer offered 
to God: "Lord, teach us to number our days." 
Hence the Bible sets God forth as the teacher of 
mathematics. Theologians tell us that arithmetic 
is the handmaid of religion, and is a most telling 
witness of the existence of God as He reveals 
Himself in creation. They tell us that we cannot 
reach a true theology or a correct knowledge of 
God without a knowledge of arithmetic. 

I have in my library two small pamphlets, writ- 
ten by a Boston friend, right in line with this 
thought. They should be owned by every intel- 
ligent Christian. These pamphlets are entitled 
"Atheism and Arithmetic" and "Number in Na- 
ture." Their design, you can surmise from their 
titles, is to show that there is number in nature 
and accurate arithmetic in the works of creation ; 
therefore atheism, or the denial of the existence 
and overrule of God in the universe, is a gross 
absurdity. God proves His existence and His 
wisdom by the way He counts. 

I ask you to walk with me among the works of 
Nature for the sole purpose of noting the play of 
arithmetic in the construction of God's works. 
And just here in this part of the sermon I mean 
to think leisurely and take my time. I mean at 
this point to add incident to incident. I mean to 



INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. 343 

condense a page or two of the pamphlets to which 
I have referred. 

There is arithmetic in the cornfield. Arithmetic 
is here, just as truly as it is in the knitting factory, 
where every stitch is counted and every color ac- 
curately alternated. The kernels of corn are not 
thrown around the central shaft or cob indiscrim- 
inately or by chance. They are built around the 
central shaft or cob with all the skill of a master 
mechanism. There is a careful count and a care- 
ful arrangement of the myriads of rows. Chance 
might mix up and shake and shuffle buttons to all 
eternity without arranging two orderly rows of 
buttons on a boy's jacket ; even so, chance might 
toss and tumble all the vegetable creation in the 
universe for ages without producing one ear of 
Indian corn with its kernels arranged in regular 
rows. But here in the cornfield are thousands of 
ears of corn with the kernels all arranged by some 
one who has an eye for symmetry and order, and 
who can reason and count. 

But what is there peculiar in the field of Indian 
corn ? What one thing with regard to number do 
we find wrapped up in the envelope of the care- 
fully folded husk? This: the rows of kernels 
exist in even numbers. There are four rows, or 
eight rows, or sixteen rows, or twenty-four rows ; 
never five rows, or fifteen rows, or twenty-one 
rows. Never an odd number. It is said that a 
miller who spent all his life grinding corn looked 



344 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



for twenty-seven years to see if he could not find 
one ear containing an uneven number of rows of 
kernels, but in all those twenty- seven years of 
search he did not find a single ear. A story is 
told of a slave who, on beiug promised his free- 
dom if he would find an ear of corn having an 
odd number of rows of kernels, went into the 
cornfield when the corn was earing, and, carefully 
opening a number of husks, deftly cut out a row 
of kernels from each, and then closed up the husks 
again. The corn grew and ripened, and closed up 
in its growth the vacant spaces. When it was 
gathered the slave searched for and found one of 
these ears with an odd number of rows, and pre- 
sented it and claimed his freedom. There are the 
vast fields of corn, and this accurate count goes 
on year after year. Why? Because there is 
an intelligent Being constantly back of the uni- 
verse. Because there is a God, and He has a will 
which He executes. Because there is a God, and 
He counts. Because there is a God, and He rules 
and governs the secret energies of the vegetative 
life in accordance w r ith mathematical laws. 

Nothing is so wonderful as the arithmetic in the 
vegetable world. In no sphere is there more 
counting and weighing and measuring. Every 
vegetable organism is built up by a most subtle 
chemistry of nature from the atoms derived from 
the earth and the air and the water. The germ- 
builders here are empowered by the great Creator 



INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. 345 

to draw from surrounding atoms in such specific 
quantity and in such constant proportion as will 
construct each particular structure in exact parts 
which can be expressed numerically. No chem- 
ist's prescriptions are made up with a thousandth 
part of the accuracy with which nature works here. 

God is an arithmetician. There is number in the 
department of crystallization. God always counts 
when He makes the six-sided and the eight-sided 
and the twelve-sided crystal gem. Take, for ex- ^ 
ample, a snow-storm. It is simply one magnificent 
exhibit of the operation of the laws of crystalliza- 
tion. If we narrow our study to a single snow- 
flake we will find that in it is the arithmetic of 
crystallization. There is arithmetic in every flake, 
for every snow-flake is accurately and geomet- 
rically constructed. The most delicate arithmetic 
and geometry reign supreme here. Last month I 
devoted two full weeks to the study of the snow- 
flake, and read almost everything in the Boston 
libraries centering on that subject. I studied it 
as a work of God ; I studied it as I would study 
a chapter in Genesis, and took notes for future use. 
I found one book by a Brooklyn literary woman 
containing hundreds of plates with accurate draw- 
ings of snow-flakes taken from reality and life. 
Each drawing gave a distinct variety of snow- 
flake. No two were alike. But this was the pe- 
culiarity of all and of each — the number six was 
the active and leading factor in their construction. 



346 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



The Great Arithmetician never missed count. For 
example, there were six glittering points symmet- 
rically arranged in the single flake ; or there were 
six little triangles so arranged as to make the flake 
into the shape of a six-pointed star; or the flake 
was built into the form of a wheel with six sides ; 
or the flake was a little forest with six little trees, 
each little tree having six little branches. And 
thus on and thus on. These plates were all ex- 
amined by the famous Agassiz, and they bear his 
indorsement for correctness. When I closed the 
reading of that book I said to myself: "Verily, 
each snow-storm is a gigantic arithmetical problem 
accurately worked out on God's slate." 

God is an arithmetician. There is arithmetic 
in the plumage of the bird. There is a minute 
numerical accuracy in the measurement of the 
spaces occupied by the feathers, and in the grada- 
tion of the tints of the feathers, and in the adher- 
ence to a given pattern after which the feathers 
are woven. Take the peacock's feather. In it you 
have a remarkable example. In it a repeated and 
resplendent pattern must be produced by the 
united effect of the combination of the different 
and distinct tints marked, at fixed distances, on 
each separate spray of each feather; and each 
point of each spray of each feather must be so 
constituted as to reflect a particular ray of the 
sunbeam. The whole structure must be made to 
grow out from the feather-roots inserted in the 



INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. 347 

living bird. Each spray requires a different devel- 
opment. Such is the gigantic task of construct- 
ing the plumage of a peacock. But it is under- 
taken and successfully executed. My fellow-men, 
there are a million chances to one against this 
structure being the work of blind force, which can 
neither see colors nor take account of measured 
space, nor delight in the glorious result. Cicero 
says : " It would be easier to believe that a million 
Greek letters accidentally fell upon the ground in 
the form of Homer's melodious fables, complete 
in sense and complete in the scansion of the hex- 
ameters than to believe that nature is a thing of 
chance." 

God is an arithmetician. There is arithmetic in 
the skies. God counts the stars and gives them 
all their names. He counts them and places them 
so accurately that they are a celestial timepiece, 
with jeweled wheels, measuring not only seconds 
and minutes and hours and days, but measuring 
years and decades and centuries and millenniums. 

God is an arithmetician. There is arithmetic in 
the construction of man. The heart throbs ac- 
cording to arithmetic, and the pulse beats accord- 
ing to arithmetic. Wisely and beautifully did 
David sing three thousand years ago concerning 
the construction of man. Addressing God with 
reference to his physical frame, he says, " In the 
book of patterns, or anatomical drawings, all my 
members were written and delineated, in the days 



348 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



when not one of them was fashioned." Christ 
refers to the arithmetic which pertains to our 
heads, and by it illustrates God's superintendence 
and providential care relative to His people. When 
we see how God counts and counts and counts 
everywhere in nature, we can believe every word 
uttered by Jesus when He says, " Even the very 
hairs of your head are all numbered." Number- 
ing the hairs of our head is marvelous care-taking 
upon the part of our Heavenly Father, but it is 
God-like, and it has a universal corroboration. It 
is God-like, and nothing less particular and minute 
could satisfy God. 

God is an arithmetician. Nature proclaims it ; 
our physical frame proclaims it ; the written Word 
proclaims it. Listen to the written Word : " Lift 
up your eyes on high, and behold who hath cre- 
ated these things, who bringeth out their host by 
number. He calleth them all by their names, 
because He is strong in power; not one faileth." 
Again, " He hath measured the waters in the hol- 
low of His hand, and meted out heaven with a 
span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in 
a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, 
and the hills in a balance." According to these 
Scriptures the mind of God is a mind that counts, 
and weighs, and proportions, and calculates, and 
measures, and regulates. 

God is an arithmetician. But why ring the 
changes upon this fact? There are two reasons 



INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. 349 

why : first, this fact shows us that our God is He 
to whom we should offer the prayer of the text. 
He can teach us to number as no other can. He 
can endow us with the wisdom of calculation, and 
He will if we ask Him. He can make us God-like 
in the arithmetical faculty and power, and He will 
if we ask Him. Second, this fact shows us that 
the power of calculation, the arithmetical faculty, 
alone can give the wisdom requisite for the most 
effective use of things. God is a proficient and 
perfect worker, and He is so because He calcu- 
lates and weighs and measures and estimates the 
possibilities of things. When we ask instruction 
in arithmetic, to whom should we go but unto 
Him? Handing back to Him the old year and 
receiving from Him the new year, let this be our 
prayer : " Lord, teach us to number our days that 
we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." 

At first thought it would seem as though we 
needed not to be instructed on such a subject. It 
would seem as though man's mortality were evi- 
dent, and as if it were an impossible thing for him 
to hide it from himself. Yes. But, nevertheless, 
he does hide it from himself, and on this account 
no prayer is more important than the prayer of 
the text. The demonstration of human mortality 
is in a hundred generations of the dead. It is in 
the ground beneath our feet, which is billowy with 
graves full of the dust which once lived in human 
forms and spoke and was loved. It is in the long 



35o 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



line of the one hundred thousand human lives 
which every day pass the boundary-line from time 
into eternity and melt into nothingness before our 
eyes. It is in every tick of the clock which marks 
the passage of some immortal soul and declares 
the death-rate of the world. It is in our fading 
vision, in our failing health, and in our wrinkles. 
It is in the dying-beds and the coffined forms and 
the empty homes of the closing year. It is in 
the knell, and in the shroud, and in the mattock, 
and in the grave. Yet, withal, humanity at large 
does not realize the mortality of humanity. The 
woman dresses and dines and dances, all forgetful 
of the end. The man busies himself in pleading 
causes, writing opinions, building railroads, man- 
aging banks, all unconscious that he will leave 
these some day. So thoroughly unrealized is the 
mortality of man, that the first condition of right 
living, the fundamental thought of a wise life, is 
ignored and undreamed of by thousands and thou- 
sands. There are multitudes who have not put 
the kingdom of God into their lives, neither first 
nor last nor anywhere. Oh, what a condition for 
a rational being to be in, and to be contented to 
be in — unprepared to die, unforgiven, Christless, 
with no everlasting home, and the days passing, 
running, flying. O careless one! pray the prayer 
of the text. Your madness is the wildest madness 
in the universe, and your folly is unmatched folly. 
I call upon you to deal with life in a business way, 



INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. 351 

for there is no business so important and so far- 
reaching. Let the chimes of the year startle you, 
and call you to your Heaven-assigned mission. 

But why should we number our years? That 
is the question. Until that question is answered 
we can breathe no faith and no desire into this 
prayer. 

I answer, we should not number our days that 
we may mourn and fret, and become misanthropic, 
and sing dirges, and give up to a premature old 
age, saying : " Life is nothing ; it is so diminutive 
that it is not worth living." No; we are to num- 
ber our days that we may form a just estimate of 
the duration of human life ; that we may feel how 
rapidly the days are passing; that we may see 
the certainty of the end, and how liable we are 
to be cut down. We are to number our days in 
order that we may be helped in the business of 
life insurance — that insurance which secures life 
eternally, and renders it full of everlasting profit. 

But allow me to use arithmetic in dealing with 
this prayer, given us by this oldest of all of the 
sacred songs of praise possessed by the Church of 
God. Let me enumerate some of the teachings 
of this prayer, which was first offered by Moses, 
who composed this ninetieth Psalm in the wilds of 
the wilderness. I have three points which I wish 
to present. In presenting them I wish only to 
sketch them in outline and not paint them in full. 
My first point is this : 



352 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



I. The prayer of the text teaches that we are to 
deal with human life by parts. 

We cannot profitably deal with life in the whole- 
sale, we must deal with it in the retail. That is 
the way God gives us time, moment by moment ; 
just as He gives the gold, grain by grain. We are 
only able to handle life in short periods. A year! 
No man is equal to a year. A month ! No man 
is equal to a month. A day ! That is the longest 
period any man can handle. Let a man finish up 
a day well, and he does magnificently. The best 
works are those which are finished particle by par- 
ticle, each particle being wrought up to the highest 
possible state of perfection. Besides this, there is 
another consideration. If time is to be spoiled, it 
is better to spoil only a day than to spoil a month, 
or to spoil a year. Brethren, although God gives 
us time so sparsely, yet none of us estimates the 
full value of time. The individual moment is not 
looked upon as a precious grain of gold. I could 
prove this in many ways ; but let us be satisfied 
with one way. Take as an example the names of 
our various methods of getting rid of time. These 
indicate our undervaluation of time. Notice some 
of these names: " pastime," i.e., what consumes 
and uses up the hours easily; "amusement," i.e., 
what prevents musing or meditation ; " diversion," 
i.e., what turns aside; "entertainment," i.e., what 
holds in suspense or . equilibrium. These words, 
which are in common use, indicate and reveal a 



INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. 353 



wrong condition of thought and feeling about time. 
They characterize it as a drug in the market to be 
got rid of at any price and in any quantity, whereas 
it is the most precious trust we have. The chem- 
ist, filling his bottle, pours carelessly into it a quan- 
tity of common tincture ; but when he comes to the 
rare and potent compound, which the tincture is in- 
tended merely to dilute and to carry, he measures 
it drop by drop. So God, who gives other things 
in profusion and largely, when He comes to give us 
time, gives it moment by moment. 

There is a value in dividing life into days ac- 
cording to the text, and counting the days. By 
this method we get two opposite views of life, and 
both views are needed. Because of these two op- 
posite views, life is neither overestimated nor un- 
derestimated. By dividing life into days, 

1. We see how short human life is. Its days 
are limited. We must see the shortness of human 
life. There is nothing that the Bible presents so 
forcibly. I do not believe that there is a single 
book in the Bible that omits to present the short- 
ness of human life. It is presented not to paralyze 
man, but to solemnize and stimulate. The short- 
ness of human life is a cry against procrastination. 
It bids us carry our purposes into execution at 
once. It emphasizes the value of the nick of time. 
The shortness of life is a protest against non- watch- 
fulness. Against the man who gives a whole week 
to idleness it cries, " Shame!" A whole week is 



354 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



seven days. A man can travel from Sandy Hook 
to the Golden Gate in seven days. The shortness 
of life shows the wondrous grace of God. He 
grants an eternity of glory as a reward of a few 
years of holy living. 

2. But we reach a second and opposite view of 
human life by dividing it into days and counting 
the days. We see how long it is. It seems far 
longer when looked at in days than it does when 
looked at in months and years. When we take a 
day and see how much can be crowded into a 
day, and then when we see how many days are in 
a life, life seems great. Divide anything up into 
parts and you magnify it. You are acquainted 
with the way a certain wise husband took to give 
his wife an idea of how much one thousand dollars 
is. She had no idea of money. Her purchases 
were enormous. It happened one day that her 
eye fell upon a magnificent gem-ring and she 
coveted it. It cost one thousand dollars. But 
what were one thousand dollars to her in compar- 
ison with the ring? Of course her husband con- 
sented to its purchase. What else could a dutiful 
and affectionate husband do? But he struck upon 
this method of educating his wife concerning the 
great price of the ring. He instructed his banker 
to send her the one thousand dollars in small pieces 
« — pennies, dimes, quarters. In came the money, 
bag full and bag full. She never had such an idea 
of a thousand dollars before, When the money 



INSTR UCTION IN ARITHME TIC. 355 

was piled before her it positively alarmed her. 
The price of the ring went up a hundredfold and 
was considered at once an extravagance, which she 
of her own option abandoned. A human life broken 
up into days is like one thousand dollars broken up 
into coppers and fractional silver pieces. 

Know the value of days / That is the way to 
reach a high appreciation of a human life. But 
how can I know the value of days? In this way. 
Mark how much of history has been crowded into 
single days. Let me give you one instance to 
study at your leisure. I take it from the life of 
Jesus Christ as recorded by the Evangelist Mat- 
thew. Have you ever noticed the closing chap- 
ters of Matthew's Gospel, those chapters which 
include the last third of the Gospel ? Have you 
ever noticed how few of the days of Jesus are re- 
corded in these chapters? See what large space 
is given to the closing twenty-four hours of His 
earthly life. The history of that one day fills 
chapter after chapter. These chapters occupied 
with the last day of His life give us an idea of the 
grandeur of His whole life. When we pray, " Lord, 
teach us to number our days," we ask God that 
we may see somewhat of the fullness of work and 
glory of which our life is capable. The second 
chief point which. I wish to present is : 

II. The prayer of the text teaches us that there 
is a right way and a wrong way of counting the 
days of human life, 



356 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



All past days are not to be counted in reckoning 
up the life which is behind us, although all coming 
days are to be counted in reckoning life as it comes. 
It is not good spiritual arithmetic to treat the past 
and the future alike. There are days in the past 
which have a history, but there are days there 
which have no history. There are historic gaps 
in life. There are blanks in life. Take a concrete 
case. There is a silence of a whole year in the 
biography of David. For twelve months he sung 
no song of praise, thought no great thoughts, and 
sent nothing good down to posterity. Both harp 
and conscience were silent. When he lived in a 
spiritual atmosphere and did spiritual deeds his 
life was recorded ; but when he stepped down 
from spirituality into carnality there were great 
blank leaves in his book of life. Prior to the pe- 
riod when the prophet Nathan pointed the finger 
of reproof at him and brought his conscience back 
to activity there was an awful waste of a whole 
year. 

What we notice in the story of David we notice 
in the story of Israel. There was a blank in the 
story of the Jewish nation, a waste of forty years. 
This wilderness period proclaimed to the world 
that golden opportunities had been trampled under 
foot. But this gap is nothing to the gap which 
has since followed. What a historic gap there has 
been in the history of. the Jews, the covenant- 
people of God, during the Christian era! The 



1NSTR UCTION IN ARITHME TIC. 357 



gap consists of centuries of vagabondage and wan- 
dering. If the Israelites had been true to them- 
selves and to God they might have had nineteen 
centuries of magnificent history. We cannot for- 
get what they produced during the fifteen centu- 
ries prior to the coming of Christ. They gave the 
world the moral law which has been the basis of 
all true and helpful legislation ever since. They 
built up the Book of God, which to this day in- 
structs mankind and leads all true human think- 
ing. We owe them our loftiest conceptions of 
God, our purest morals, and our highest ideals of 
human rights. How grandly the inspired Paul 
lauds them ! His words flame and glow. " Who 
are the Israelites? To them pertaineth the adop- 
tion, and the glory, and the covenants, and the 
giving of the law, and the service of God, and the 
promises ; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as 
concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, 
God blessed forever. Amen." The living which 
Paul, with an honest and patriotic pride, recounts 
is grand living. Why was not that living dupli- 
cated and reduplicated during the past centuries? 
The answer is plain : the Israelites proved untrue 
to their God. They crucified their Messiah, and 
kept recrucifying Him. Nineteen hundred years, 
and no prophet ; nineteen hundred years, and no 
world- thinker and leader — nothing but a by- word, 
nothing but wandering. What a lamentable blank ! 
and that, too, while it was among the possibilities 



358 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



for Jerusalem to continue the city of God, the 
leader of all humanity. 

We need to be taught on this line, viz., what 
days to count as we review the past. We need 
to be taught how to distinguish between moral 
units and moral ciphers. Days spent for self and 
in the service of the world are moral ciphers ; only 
days spent for the glory of Christ are moral units, 
moral tens, moral hundreds, and moral thousands. 
Everything which has been done for Christ is glo- 
riously immortal, but that and that only is glo- 
riously immortal. 

" We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
We should count time by heart-throbs. 
He lives most who thinks most, feels the noblest, 
And acts the best." 

Methuselah's nine hundred and sixty-nine years 
are no match for the one hundred and twenty 
years of Moses. 

Fronting the new year, I ask you, Are you sat- 
isfied with the character of your days ? Are you 
worked up to your highest possibilities ? See you 
nothing beyond ? 

Here you are at the age of twenty : with the 
faults of childhood upon you still; pettish, un- 
governed, insatiable. A soul twenty years of age 
should have better characteristics than these. Are 
you what you would be? 

Here you are at thirty : with the faults of youth 



INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. 359 

upon you still ; vain, inconsiderate, pleasure-loving. 
A soul at thirty years of age should be considerable 
of a man. Look at Christ at thirty. His plans 
of life were matured. Magnificent purposes were 
beating in His heart. At thirty He undertook the 
redemption of the world. A man of thirty should 
have boundless hopes and daring enterprises. 

Here you are at forty : still wearing the badge 
of early folly ; proud, passionate, sensual. The 
soul of forty should be characterized by a face 
firmly fixed heavenward. The man of forty should 
be under complete control, all his faculties alive to 
goodness, his character beautiful for its wholeness 
and oneness. At forty are you what you would 
like to be? 

Here you are at sixty : but you are riot yet 
wise with the experience of life. Selfish still, 
unsympathetic still, under the chain of evil habit 
still. A man of sixty should be a fire-pillar in 
society, a formulator of public sentiment, a whole- 
some example, a wise and respected judge, a con- 
science in the community. The outlines of finality 
and perfection should be shining in his character. 
At sixty are you what you would like to be ? 

Ask your soul the question : Soul, understandest 
thou what true manhood is? What is it in man 
that is man? What differentiates him from the 
animal creation around him? It is thy faculties, 
O Soul. Broad intellect, moral sense, the spiritual 
nature, the endowment of sentiments which inspire 



360 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



the idea of purity, of self-denial, of holy love, and 
of supersensuousness. Art thou observing the law 
of love, and living above the things of self? Art 
thou taking hold of invisible qualities, invisible 
states, and the invisible realities which become the 
child of God? This is the only way to make life 
grand, and to fill our days and years with that 
which is valuable and worthy of being counted. 

III. The prayer of the text teaches us that God's 
desire is that we shall spend human life wisely. 

That means that we shall live for God ; for there 
is no wise life apart from Him. All who ignore 
God in life are denominated fools by the Good 
Book. And it' is wonderful how many fools are 
introduced to us by the Bible. Men fools and 
women fools. Just see! There is the builder 
who built his house upon the sand — a man fool. 
There is the rich farmer who laid up riches in 
barns instead of in his soul — another man fool. 
There are the five sleeping watchers with un- 
trimmed lamps — a whole troop of fools, women. 
The world is filled with men and women lacking 
wisdom. 

There are different types of life, and wisdom in 
living consists in choosing the highest type, and 
living it. There is the Abraham type, and there 
is the Lot type. According to spiritual arithmetic, 
the values of these lives contrast but do not com- 
pare. Lot's life shows us how contracted a man's 
religious life may be, and yet that man be a child 



INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. 36 1 

of God. Abraham's life shows us how grand the 
religious life of a man may be and ought to be. 
It shows us God's ideal for His children. Abra- 
ham was cultured, under the tuition of God, in 
spiritual arithmetic, and he regulated his life by 
this arithmetic. Spiritual arithmetic taught him, 
each day, to add to his graces, and to subtract 
from his sinful habits, and to multiply his holy 
endeavors, and to divide his duties, and to propor- 
tionate his thanksgivings to his mercies. 

Fronting the new year, let us remember that 
our life is before us as the keyboard of the organ 
is before the musician. The musician knows the 
possibilities of the keyboard. Through it he can 
translate into real life the whole world of music. 
Through it he can make the master-genius of the 
past live again. Through it he can resurrect the 
grand musical thoughts of the old masters, and 
send them vibrating anew in the air, and thrilling 
anew through human souls. 

Fronting the new year, let us remember that 
life is before us as the broad canvas is before the 
landscape-painter. The painter knows the possi- 
bilities of the canvas. He knows that there are 
scenes in nature not yet translated into the colors 
of his art. There was a time, I believe, when 
landscape-painters were mourning the poverty of 
their subjects. They felt that all of the grand 
outlooks had been committed to the canvas, and 
that the future would consist only in copying. 



362 



OUR BEST MOODS. 



Their anxiety was useless. Soon there was dis- 
covered an unknown marvel of nature, an un- 
explored solitude of grandeur. God opened the 
Yosemite, full of rich and new subjects for brush 
and pencil. Men talk of the limitations of life. 
To the Christian there are no limitations of life. 
The possibilities of human life are as inexhaustible 
and as illimitable as the endowment and the dura- 
tion of the immortal soul. This is what we wish 
to write upon our hearts as we leave the old year 
and step across the threshold into the new year. 
Our years are numbered, but the influences pos- 
sible to our years are unnumbered and never- 
dying. We can, by the help of divine grace, fill 
the coming year with deeds as eternal as the eter- 
nal life of God. To do this is to apply our hearts 
unto wisdom. To do this is to realize the prayer 
of the text. 



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late sale of Carter Bros., we have issued a new edition— published at 
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" He was the most eloquent man in Europe." — London Times 

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" His stories give sparkle and zest, and greet us on almost every 
page." — Harper's Magazine. 

" It is music to read his rich and ringing sentences, all on fire of the 
Gospel. "—Methodist Protestant. 




In the quiet, tender pathos which touches some of the 
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STUDIES 

OF THE 

MODEL LIFE. 

The Various Aspects of Christ Considered in a 
Series of Essays. 
By Rev. BURDETT HART, D.D., 

Pastor Emeritus Congregational Church, New Haven, 
Fellow of Yale University. 

The human soul, in its reaches after goodness, 
seeks a pattern after which it can model. The only- 
perfect one is that of the God-Man. Dr. Hart has 
presented Him in these STU DIES with a breadth of 
view, a vividness of outline, and a beauty of expres- 
sion that must commend the Saviour to every reader. 
The book throughout is strong in argument, force- 
ful in statement and elegant in style. 

" They are written in simple, popular language and 
have many earnest and even eloquent passages. It is vigor- 
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gationalism Boston. 

"Studies of the Model Life will be read with profit. It 
is an excellent book for Sunday reading.'' — Christian at 
Work, N. Y. 

1 ' A collection of glowing pictures of the Saviour in the 
different scenes and acts of his life.'' — Independent, N. Y. 

" The author is concise, vigorous, and uncommonly able. 
The chapters are short, edifying, and effective." — Golden 
Aule, Boston. 

" The writer has caught much of the spirit of Him of 
whom he writes and the book has a corresponding charm. 
The style of the author is pure and finished, and the 
modest volume is worthy of a place in any library." — 
Northern Christian Advocate. 

One Vol. 12mo. 288 pp. Illustrated. Price, - $1.25 
Presentation Edition. Vellum Cloth. Gilt Top, $1.50 
E. B. TREAT, Pub., 5 Cooper Union, N. Y. 



TIMELY TOPICS 

POLITICAL, BIBLICAL, ETHICAL, EDUCATIONAL, 
PRACTICAL, 

DISCUSSED 
By College Presidents, Professors and Eminent 
Living Writers. 

Specially Contributed to and Copyrighted 
in the TKJEASVKY MA.GAZINE. 

THE subjects discussed and the authors who handle them 
should predispose all thoughtful persons to give a 
careful reading to Tl MELY TOPICS. 

Each writer was chosen for the thoroughness with which 
he had investigated the subject assigned to him and for his 
eminent ability in presenting his views on themes involved 
in the great Questions ff the Day. 

Among the thirty-six papers and authors are : 
THE PAPACY IN POLITICS. John Hall, D.D., 
New York. 

HOW CAN JESUITISM BE MET? Principal Mac- 
Vicar, Montreal. 

THE OPPONENTS OF CHRISTIANITY. Sir Wm. 
Dawson, Montreal. 

CHKISTIANITY VERSUS FORMALISM. President 
S. A. Ort, Wittenberg College. 

THE PULPIT AND ETHICS. President Raymond, 
Wesleyan University. 

WHAT IS TRUTH ? President F. L. Patton, D.D., 
Princeton College. 

DOiS CHRISTIANITY MEET THE DEMANDS 
OFTHEAGE? President E . B. Andrews of Brown . 

BROTHERHOOD IN HIGHEST SERVICE. Presi- 
dent Gates of Amherst. 

OPPORTUNITIES AND OBLIGATIONS. Professor 
Fisher of Yale, and others. 



" We do not often have placed in our hands a bundle of 
more spicy and pithy papers than are culled in this volume 
from the recent issues of The Treasury Magazine. . . . 
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of high rank and competence." — Independent, N. Y. 

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FAMOUS WOMEN 




OF 



SACRED STORY. 

A SERIES OF LECTURES 

Comprising Faithful Delineations of the 
most noted Characters in all History. 
By REV. M. B. WHARTON, D.D. 

Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama. 
Late United States Consul to Germany. 

THE CONTENTS, IN TWO VOLS., INCLUDE : 



OLD TESTAMENT. 

EVE, The Mother of the Hu- 
man Family. 

SARAH, The Mother of the 
Faithful in every age. 

KEBEEAH, The Beautiful 
but Deceptive Wife. 

RACHEL, The Lovely Wife 
of Jacob. 

MIRI . M, The Grand, Patri- 
otic, Old Maid. 

RUTH, The Lovely Young and 
Honored Widow. 

DEBORAH, The Strong- 
Minded Woman. 

JEPHTHA'S Daughter; 
Consecrated Maiden. 

DELILAH, The Fair but 
Deceitful Wife. 

THE WITCH OF EN- 
dor, Enchantress of Samuel's 
Ghost. 

HANNAH, The Praying and 

Devoted Mother. 
ABIGAIL, The Wife of the 

Shepherd King. 
THE QUEEN OF SHE- 

Da, Solomon's Royal Guest. 
JEZEBEL, The Bloody Mary 

of Scripture. 
THE WOMAN OF SHU- 

nem, Elisha's Friend. 
ESTHER, The Delirerer of 

Her People. 



NEW TESTAMENT. 
MARIAMNE, The Jewess, 

Wife of Herod the Great. 
ELIZABETH, The Mother 

of John the Baptist. 
MARY, The Virgin Mother of 

Jesus Christ. 
MART, The Mother of the 

God Man. 
ANNA, The Prophetess in the 
Temple. 

HERODIA9, The Wicked 

Instigator of Her Daughter. 
JOANNA,TheWifeof Herod's 

Steward. 
WOMAN OF CANAAN, 

Nameless, but Full of Faith. 
WOMAN OF SAMARIA, 

The Adulteress, but Saved. 
DAUGHTER OF J A I - 
ru*. Dead but Raised to Life. 
MART OF BETHANY, 

The Anointer of Jesus' Feet. 
MARY MAGDALEN, 

The Victim of Seven Devils. 
DOR CAS, The Disciple Raised 

to Life by Peter. 
SAPPHIRA, The Lying 

Partner of Her Husband. 
LYDIA, Paul's First Europeaa 

Christian Convert. 
THE ELECT LADY, t* 
whom John Addressed an 
Epistle. 

In Two Vols., 318 pages each. Illustrated. Sold sepa. 
rately, Price each, $1.50. 

E. B. TREAT, Pub,, 5 Cooper Union, New York, 



Dr. 



MACDUFF'S SELECT WORKS. 




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1 * he has done a nobie work by his " Hosan- 
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E, p. TREAT, Pub., 5 Cooper Union, New York. 



The BOW in the CLOUD ; 

OR, 

WORDS 

OP 

COMFORT 

For those in Bereavement, Sickness, Sorrow, and 
the Varied Afflictions of Life. 

EDITED BY 

REV. J. SANDERSON, D.D., 

Editor of The Treasury for Pastor and People. 

The messages, which this book conveys to the sorrowing 
and tried ones, come as sunshine in the darkness of life's 
experiences, from the hearts and pens of those who have 
known what afflictions are, and who have been comforted 
by the precious truths, through which they would here seek 
to console others. Its contents, by over 200 contributors, 
in Poetry and Prose, comprise: 

CONSOLATION FROM THE BIBLE. "Thus 
saith the Lord," — which abideth forever. 

COMFORT FOR PARENTS Bereft of Children, 
with Assurances of Infant Salvation. 

FOR BEREAVED ONES. Various ages and condi- 
tions considered. 

THE AGED AND INFIRM here find a balm for 
every wound. 

TO THOSE IN VARIED AFFLICTIONS ; Earth 
has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. 

"An appropriate gift to all who are in any trial." — Wm. M. Taylor, 

D. D. "May that 'Bow in the Cloud' span every bereaved home." — 
T. DeWitt Talmage. "A token of loving sympathy."— National 
Baptist. "Full of sunlight."— Wesleyan Methodist. "A treas- 
ury of consolation." — N. Y. Evangelist. "This should be a won- 
derfully popular book."— Baltimore Methodist. 

452 pages, Square l2mo, with Frontispiece and Presen- 
tation Page from Special Design. Price, post-paid, SI. 75- 

E. B, TREAT, Pub., 5 Cooper Union, New York, 




C85 82 1 



